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“What?”

“Well, not at my house.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not hosting New Year’s this year.” And if I continued to feel the way I did, there wouldn’t be any family parties at my house, ever. Nor would I be relegated to the kitchen whileeveryone else enjoyed themselves. Nor would I be the de facto babysitter for every gathering.

Something had snapped within me, and I wasn’t sure it could ever be fixed. I wasn’t sure itneededto be fixed. I felt freer and lighter than I had in a long, long time. Maybe ever.

“Lizzie,” Mom chided.

“You know at Thanksgiving, I asked for one thing,” I told her. “I asked you all to save me a portion of stuffing.”

“Listen, there were lots of people there, and we were having a good time?—”

“I cooked almost everything on that table, and then I spent the entire day taking care of everyone else’s kids. I was a maid and a babysitter and a host, and it wasn’t even my house. And I asked for one single thing, Mom. One little spoonful of stuffing.”

Her silence echoed between us.

“I wasn’t even worth that,” I finally said, my throat growing tight. “So forgive me for not feeling like I want to put in hours and days of work to host a bunch of people who don’t give a fuck about me.”

“Lizzie, language!”

“Oh, give me a break, Mom,” I said, even though that might have been the first time I’d sworn in front of her since a few memorable teenage storms. “When Isaac betrayed me and I finally worked up the courage to leave him, do you remember what you told me?”

I heard her breath, but she said nothing.

“Your exact words were, ‘Are you sure about this, Lizzie? What did you do to make him look for comfort in another woman?’” I swallowed thickly. My arms and legs tingled like I needed to run around the block just to let off some steam. When I spoke, my voice was surprisingly steady. “You blamed me for his betrayal, Mom. You made me feel like I should have just accepted the scraps of his attention. And now I finallyunderstand why. It’s because that’s what you, and Dad, and Aaron, and Kyle, and everyone else in the family think I deserve. Nothing but scraps. Not even one measly spoonful of stuffing.”

I heard her sniffle, but my heart was made of stone. When she didn’t speak, I pulled the phone away from my ear, waited a few seconds to see if she would say something, and then slowly hung up the call.

I felt like garbage. Tension stole through my entire body, and that need to run or box or scream still coursed through my veins. I felt like I’d just hurt my mom, which I hated, but the other, bigger part of me was so fucking angry that I’d let myself be treated this way for years.

I was done.

Done catering to everyone else’s feelings. Done putting myself last. Done working myself to the bone with a smile on my face.

I took a deep breath, exhaled, and stood up. Then I got dressed and packed up my camera, and I headed out to search for peace in the crashing waves and bare trees, where no one demanded a thing from me.

THIRTY-SEVEN

SEAN

The house was tooempty without Mikey. Normally, I would’ve holed up until New Year’s and thanked my lucky stars for my isolation.

Instead, I felt itchy and uncomfortable.

Margaret read me like a book, and I didn’t know what to do about it. I’d ruined things with Lizzie. Ruined things with Aaron and the rest of his family. Was I in the process of ruining things with Mikey? Would I be so caught up in my own pain for the remainder of my life that I wouldn’t see what was right in front of me? That I wouldn’t see what my own son needed from me?

Lizzie wasn’t home when I drove up to her house, and I stayed on the curb and watched the dark windows for long enough that I began to feel like some kind of creep. Then, with a deep breath, I put the truck in gear and headed to the one place I didn’t want to go.

Aaron’s Christmas tree was lit up and twinkling in the living room window. I cut the engine and slid out of my vehicle as my throat dried up and my heart began to thump. When I rang the doorbell, time slowed to an excruciating crawl.

Emily opened the door. Her eyes widened slightly. “Sean,” she said.

“Is Aaron home? I should have called. I’m sorry.”

“He’s—yeah. Come in. I’ll go get him.”