F Grade For a Bad Boy

Skye's POV

At twenty-two, I had a plan. Married by twenty-eight. California by thirty. A house with a reading nook and a man who understood that some silences are comfortable.

None of it happened.

The estates outside the car window cost more than I will earn in a lifetime. My father is dead. My mother remarried. A scandal shredded my reputation, and an eviction notice finished what was left of my pride.

Now I am being driven to my mother's new husband's estate like luggage someone forgot to tag.

"You're slouching again," Diane says from the driver's seat. Her voice is measured, the way it always is when she's cataloguing my failures. "And that expression on your face, Skye. You look like you're being escorted to your own execution."

"Maybe I am." I straighten my spine because arguing takes more energy than compliance. "Hard to tell the difference these days."

"Your father spoiled you with that dramatic streak of his. It's not an attractive quality in a grown woman."

"Neither is remarrying five months after burying your husband, but here we are."

The silence that follows could cut glass. I watch her jaw tighten in my peripheral vision, the only sign that I've landed a hit.

Diane doesn't flinch. Diane doesn't break. Diane walks into rooms and rearranges the power dynamics with nothing but posture and the particular way she holds her wine glass.

I admire her for it. I resent her for it. The two feelings coexist in the hollow of my chest like uncomfortable roommates who never learned to share space.