That bow was everything my mother had ever offered the world: a bright, expensive-looking decoration wrapped around something that was never really hers to give, that had been taken from someone smaller to make a show of generosity, and that came apart and landed in the dirt the instant anyone looked underneath it.

She had spent her whole life tying bows onto stolen things.

And I stood on the porch and watched the last one fall, and felt the forty-year weight of needing her to be someone else finally lift off my chest for good.

Chapter 12 — Home

I walked down to the street where Quinn sat in the driver’s seat of the blue Mustang, windows down, AC blasting, running her hands over the leather wheel.

I tapped the glass.