“Connor,” my mother hisses, her eyes darting toward the ballroom doors. “Keep your voice down. People will hear.”
“Let them,” I snap, my voice cracking with it. “I am so fucking tired of keeping my voice down.”
My father stiffens. “Watch your tone, young man.”
“No,” I say, chest heaving. “You don’t get it. Neither of you do. I ended this.Weended. Athena, I don’t love you. I haven’t for a long time.”
She blinks, startled. The coy tilt of her head wavers for the first time. “You’re just overwhelmed. You needed space. That’s all.”
I bark out a laugh that tastes bitter. “Do you know what nearly killed me? Pretending. Pretending to be the perfect son, the perfect boyfriend, the perfect future husband. Dying on the inside just to make everyone else comfortable. Space? Athena, I nearly collapsed from burnout six months ago. I thought I was dying. And do you know what went through my head in the emergency department? That I didn’t even know who I was anymore. Not with my job. Not with you. Not with the life everyone else wanted for me.”
“Connor,” my father growls, “this isn’t the time or the place?—”
“It’s always the same with you!” The words tear out of me, louder than I mean, but I don’t stop. “Not the time, not the place. Don’t say it here, don’t rock the boat, don’t embarrass the family. Do the job. Date the right girl. Get married, have kids, keep the image intact. Every box checked while I suffocate.”
“Connor,” my mother tries again, her voice sharp with the same warning she gave me during my teenage years.
I round on her. “I was drowning. And you didn’t notice. Or maybe you did, and you just didn’t care, because at least I was still performing.”
Her face crumples, just for a second, but then it’s gone, smoothed back into composure.
Athena steps forward, her chin high. “You’re being dramatic. You’ll regret this outburst. You always do.”
My throat tightens, and something inside me snaps. “No. I won’t regret finally telling the truth. I don’t love you. I don’t want you. And I willnevermarry you.”
The words echo in the empty hall, final and brutal.
My mother gasps softly, and my father’s jaw clenches. And Athena looks like I slapped her. But for the first time, none of them have a script ready.
And in the silence that follows, I realize I can breathe. My chest hurts, my hands are shaking, but I can breathe.
I drag a hand through my hair, the sound of muffled music and laughter seeping faintly through the ballroom doors. And suddenly, I know.
I know exactly who I need to find.
“I’m done,” I say, voice raw but steady. “With this conversation. With all of it.”
I don’t wait for a reply. I shove the doors open, scanning the room, searching desperately.
But the table where she sat is empty.
“Where is she?” My voice catches on the question, too frantic.
Camila looks up from across the table, her face soft with something like pity. She shakes her head once. “She left.”
The floor drops out beneath me.
Of course she did.
I push past the tables, past the music, out into the night air. My pulse is still pounding, my throat raw, my chest hollow with panic. Every path stretches dark ahead of me—back to the house, down to the lake, anywhere.
I don’t care where she went. I just know I have to find her.
Because if I don’t—if I let her slip away now—I’ll lose the only thing that’s ever made me feel like I wasn’t drowning.
40
MANUELA
