DEBORAH'S POV
The kitchen smelled like burnt toast and regret. I scraped the blackened bread into the trash and started over, my hands shaking slightly. Charlotte sat at the breakfast table, picking at her cereal with the same enthusiasm she might show a bowl of wet cement.
"More milk?" I asked, already reaching for the carton.
She shook her head without looking up. "I'm not hungry."
My chest tightened. Of course she wasn't hungry. After yesterday's disaster at school, after Principal Whitmore's cutting words, after hearing her classmates call her horrible names, why would she be?
I was failing her. Just like my mother had failed me.
The thought hit me like a blade to the guts. I pressed my palms against the counter and took a deep breath. No. I would not be like her. I would not let my daughter grow up feeling abandoned, forgotten, unloved. I had to do better. I had to be better.
