That connection, fragile as it was, had already taken root in her heart.
So yes, she was disappointed, more than she wanted to admit. Disappointed that they had chosen to give that place to someone else, and even more so that the girl in question had met her with thinly veiled hostility.
But beneath the disappointment lay something deeper, something far more difficult to confront. Fear. The quiet, creeping fear of losing something important all over again, just as she had before. And that was not a feeling she could simply brush aside or pretend did not exist.
This, this was the aftermath of what Maddison had done to her. Not something loud or visible, but something far more insidious, carved deep into her psyche through quiet, relentless torment.
