PROLOGUE
My heart raced as the car slowed before the gates.
They were tall, black, silent—guarding something I didn't belong to. Beyond them stood the mansion, distant and uninviting, a place I could never call home.
I glanced at my mother. Grace. Beautiful as always, even now, after everything life had taken from her. I was too much like her—too soft, my hair too long, my lashes too thick. People had mistaken me for a girl more times than I cared to count.
She squeezed my hand gently. "I'm here," she said, her voice steady, but her eyes betrayed her.
I nodded, though my chest felt tight.
A new home.
A new life.
A new family.
But all I could think about was everything we left behind.
It had always been just the two of us.
For as long as I could remember.
But before that… there was him.
My father.
They met in Raventon, a town too small for dreams, too heavy with the past. My mother had been in college then, full of plans, determined to make something of herself. But she met my father.
People in Raventon whispered she was too beautiful for him. That something about their love didn't make sense. But my mother always said she loved him.
Even when it cost her everything.
Pregnant at eighteen, she dropped out of college and moved into my father's small apartment, a place filled with too little space and too little money.
But they stayed.
Together.
My father worked as a cleaner in the only fancy restaurant in Raventon. He wanted to be a chef. He worked hard, harder than anyone. And somehow, they made it work.
Then I was born.
My mother called me their lucky charm.
Because soon after, my father got promoted. Not a chef, but close enough. He worked in the kitchen now, learning, improving.
For a while… things were good.
Not perfect. But good.
Until everything changed.
I remember my mother running barefoot, not even closing the door behind her. My father had been hit by a car.
I stayed with my grandmother while my mother rushed to the hospital. When I finally saw my father again, he was thinner, pale, sitting in a wheelchair.
He couldn't walk anymore.
I was six.
I didn't understand it all, but I understood enough.
My father wasn't the same anymore.
Bitter. Angry. Broken.
He would shout at everything. At nothing. At her.
And my mother… she took it all.
She smiled, cooked, cleaned, always pretending everything was fine.
Until I started to hate him.
One day, I wrote it down.
I wish he had died in the accident.
A few weeks later, my father was diagnosed with advanced colon cancer.
The doctor said there wasn't much time.
My mother tried to keep everything together, but the hospital bills piled up, and we started borrowing money from people we shouldn't have. People who don't forget.
He died when I was eight. And a few weeks later, my grandmother died too.
Just like that, it was only my mother and me again.
We survived. We moved on.
Or at least, we tried.
But everything fell apart once more.
And this time… it was my fault.
Now, we've come to this new place. A new life. A new chance.
I sighed. My palm felt sweaty.
I stepped out of the car.