Chapter 18 - Senior Year
Mia moved back into Dad's house in August.
I moved out for college two weeks later.
The timing felt almost funny.
She took the smaller bedroom voluntarily.
My room stayed mine.
Dad made that clear.
We also changed the locks on every account that mattered.
Not just passwords.
Habits.
No shared identity folder.
No signing without reading.
No financial information left on kitchen counters.
Dad started therapy.
Mia did too.
I did not attend family sessions at first.
I needed a life that was not organized around repairing the Dawson house.
College gave me that.
Dorm laundry.
Bad cafeteria eggs.
A roommate named Nia who talked in her sleep.
A statistics professor who terrified everyone.
Normal problems.
I loved them.
The Harper scholarship covered tuition.
Mom's restored education money covered books and part of housing.
Grandma's cabin stayed in her name while I figured out what I wanted.
No rush.
Mia worked at the garden store all summer and paid the first $600 toward the credit-card balance that had been removed from my name and transferred into her restitution plan.
She sent me a screenshot.
I replied:
Good.
Nothing more.
Then one October evening, she called.
"Claire, I need help."
I almost said no automatically.
"With what?"
"College essay."
I laughed.
"Seriously?"
"I know."
She wanted to write about jealousy.
Not me.
Herself.
I read the draft.
It was messy.
Defensive.
Then honest in one paragraph:
I spent years believing another girl's success was evidence of my failure. I became cruel because cruelty let me feel powerful for five minutes at a time.
I sat back.
"Keep that paragraph."
"You don't think it makes me look bad?"
"It makes you look responsible."
There was silence.
Then she whispered, "I'm sorry about the dress."
She had apologized before.
This time she did not cry.
Did not explain.
May you like
Did not ask me to forgive her.
For the first time, the apology sounded like it belonged to me instead of to her guilt.
