“It technically doesn’t have a mortgage.”
“That isn’t the point.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
His face tightened.
Then he said something I hadn’t expected.
“Mom thinks Dad intended the house to stay in the family.”
“It is in the family. You own it.”
“She means our family.”
There it was.
The sentence underneath every argument we’d had since moving in.
I leaned back.
“Then maybe she should live there.”
Ryan looked frightened.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I’m not going back under the same conditions.”
“She doesn’t live with us.”
“She practically does. She has a key. She comes over without calling. She rearranges things. She criticizes everything I change. And apparently she can throw me out.”
“She can’t.”
“She did.”
Ryan reached across the table.
I moved my hand away.
“I want the locks changed,” I said. “And she doesn’t get another key.”
His eyes widened.
“Hannah—”
“And if she insults me in my home again, she leaves. Not me.”
Ryan was silent for a long moment.
Then he whispered, “If I do that, she’ll say you’re making me choose.”
I stood up.
“No, Ryan. She already made you choose.”
I put on my coat.
“The question is whether you noticed.”
At that moment, the coffee shop door chimed.
I didn’t turn around.
I didn’t need to.
I already knew Ryan wouldn’t follow me outside.
Some men freeze in the cold.
Others simply never learned how to stay warm without someone else resetting the pressure.
And I was done being the one who always showed up to fix it.
