I could barely see my own kids.

And every single day, Selina and her mother and her lawyers were telling anyone who’d listen that I was unstable, that I was dangerous, that I couldn’t be trusted.” He wiped his face with the back of a cracked hand.

“And I thought — I thought if I called you, if I said all of it out loud to you, then I’d have to admit that maybe they were right.

That maybe I really was the failure they said I was.

As long as I didn’t tell you, some part of me could still pretend it wasn’t real.”

An anger so pure and so hot rose in my chest that I had to force my voice down almost to a whisper to keep it from filling the diner.