Page 33 of Waiting for You

"Xavier." Her aristocratic voice clipped through the speaker, every syllable placed. "Where are you?"

"At Violet's wedding."

She paused, calculating her next angle. "And how is she?"

"She's fine," I said. "The ceremony was beautiful, the reception's winding down, and she's gone up to her suite with her new husband. She's happy."

"Who walked her down the aisle?"

"I did."

The silence on her end turned frigid. "I want to know what her wedding dress looked like. Text me the photographs."

"No."

"Xavier, do not⁠—"

"If you wanted to see the damn dress," I cut her off, my voice dropping low, "you should have shown up to the wedding."

Her tone tightened, vibrating with defensive anger. "She refused to invite me."

"And can you guess why?"

"Violet has always been like this," she snapped. "Endlessly dramatic. Everything had to line up with her vision or she'd self-destruct. We only ever tried to guide her. The same way we shaped your success⁠—"

"Don't do that," I warned.

"—we wanted the same prestige for her. We wanted her to have direction, a career that commanded respect, financial stability⁠—"

"She has financial stability," I fired back. "She built a career from scratch. She's done more in this world than you ever gave her credit for, and you weren't there to see a second of it."

"Because she withheld the invitation."

"Because she knew what garbage you'd say about the flowers. About the venue. About her dress. About every choice she made today. She knew you'd find the one microscopic flaw to tear down, and she chose to protect her joy instead of handing it to you."

"That is not⁠—"

"You told her she was a failure for how she looked," I said, my voice level. "You told her she failed academically. You told her she was a failure for not landing a traditional corporate job. Those are your words, Mother. I sat in the room and heard you say them. She's had to hear them her whole life."

A stunned silence swallowed the line.

"What kind of mother weaponizes those words against her own child?" My hand clenched around the phone. "She was different from the mold you demanded. She hacked her own path through the jungle. That's not a failure."

"Since when," she hissed, dropping into a venomous whisper, "did you become Violet's defender?"

"Since right now. And I should have stepped up a decade ago." I stopped pacing and planted my feet in the carpet. "You conditioned us to stay quiet. To never push back. You manipulated us into believing silence was good character. It wasn't." I dragged in a breath. "I'm furious with you. And I have no desire to talk to you right now."

"You can't just cut off your own mother⁠—"

"I'm not cutting you off. I'm telling you I'm furious, and I won't have this conversation while I'm this angry." I forced calm back into my voice. "Goodnight."

I hit the red button and ended the call.

I stood frozen in the empty corridor, staring at the dark screen, an old rage burning up through me. I'd never said those things out loud before. I'd spent a lifetime staying quiet. I'd always called my silence restraint, but it had never been restraint.

It was the cowardice she'd trained into me.

Violet had diagnosed that dynamic long before I did.