Mrs Kensignton'ss POV

I stood frozen in the hallway long after Serena’s footsteps faded into silence. Her words—“Either accept that or let me go”—cut through me with the force of a blade. It wasn’t just anger in her voice; it was pain, years of it, buried deep and now finally unleashed. And I had no one to blame but myself.

I had been so focused on recreating a sense of familiarity, of holding onto what I understood, that I hadn’t realized how it looked through her eyes. What ...