Page 162 of Mason

I shatter.

Tears pour down my cheeks before I even know I’m crying. My hands tremble uncontrollably. I grip her arm like a lifeline.

“I—I can’t do this,” I choke out. “I can’t live like this. I can’t even handle a stupidtrayhitting the ground.”

She kneels in front of me, silent for a beat, then pulls the chair from across the room until we’re almost knee to knee. She doesn’t let go of my hand.

“It’s normal,” she says, her voice calm, soft. “After what you’ve been through, your brain is wired for survival. It’s not weakness. It’s trauma. Every noise feels like danger. Every silence feels like a setup.”

“I don’t have time,” I snap, then crumble. “I don’t think I evenwanttime. I’m too broken. Mason shouldn’t have to deal with this—me. I don’t belong in his world.”

Maxine leans forward, fierce. “Bullshit.”

I blink.

“You think I didn’t feel the same way?” she says, her jaw tightening. “You think I didn’t look at the women around me—Mia, Jacklyn, all of them—and wonder why I was the one who couldn’t breathe without shaking? Why I flinched every time a door slammed?”

I say nothing. Just cry harder.

“I was trafficked, Shelby,” she says, her voice deadpan. No theatrics. Just the facts. “Held like livestock. Moved from place to place. Used until I forgot what it meant to be a person. I stopped counting days. I stopped counting faces.”

A sob catches in my throat.

She leans back slightly, not pulling away—just giving the story space.

“I got out,” she says, her eyes on mine. “But I didn’t get free. Not right away. I carried it with me. Every day. Every night. But eventually, I decided it wasn’t going to be the last thing they wrote about me. I was going to write the rest of my story.”

Her voice softens—not in tone, but in meaning. “You’re still here. And that’s not weakness, Shelby. That’swarrior shit.You lived. You survived. That’s the only truth that matters right now.”

“But I don’t feel strong,” I whisper. “I feel like I’m bleeding out from the inside. Like I’m standing on shattered glass, and no matter where I move, I just keep slicing myself open.”

Maxine squeezes my hand again. “Then let it bleed. Let it hurt. But don’t youdarethink it means Mason can’t love you.”

I look down, ashamed. “What if I’m not enough for him anymore?”

She lets out a breath. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you. Like you’re the first thing in this world that made sense to him. Don’t you dare question if you’re enough.He’s the one trying to be enough for you.”

That’s what undoes me.

Not the attack. Not the memories.

That.

I sob like my chest might split open.

Maxine pulls me into her arms, holding me there like someone who understands what it means to feel unlovable—and still be loved.

“You’re not broken,” she whispers. “You’re cracked. There’s a difference.”

And I cling to her like she’s the only thing keeping me from falling completely apart.

Because maybe she is.

The soft knockon the door is almost lost beneath the sound of my breathing.

Maxine doesn’t flinch.

She just lifts her head and looks toward it, then back to me. Her eyes are softer now. Something gentler behind the steel.

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