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My mother’sheadstone gleamed in rays of morning light, her name engraved into the marble. A weight sat on my chest as I knelt down, placing a bouquet of white lilies there, tears stinging my eyes.

It was always hard. Even knowing how much she hurt me, how much she tried to stop me from becoming who I was, I still loved her.

It’d been fifteen years since she died.

Because of her, I was raised in a world where women were only meant to serve. They only knelt for god or their husband.

A woman was of value so long as she was obedient, virginal, pure.

How could I love a god who thought I was worth so little?

Even as a child, I’d always questioned the narrative they taught me. It wasn’t until I was much older that I was able to look back that I realized just how twisted my childhood was.

Raised in a small Tennessee town by a church that was grooming me to have children and share the gospel. While I didn’t have the bright blue eyes and blonde hair they preferred, I was still good enough.

Good enoughto be taught that sex was a sin. Every movement I made was to be considerate of the men around me. If they touched me, it was because I tempted them. If I was doing better than the boys, I was showing off. If I showed a shoulder, I was punished. If I did anything they didn’t see as part of their god’s plan, I was destined to burn in hell.

Education, science, and confidence were all weapons of satan.

I left the cult when I was nineteen.

Since then, I’d been fighting the demons they’d let in. The demon who told me sex was a sin, the demon who told me I wasn’t worthy, the demon who told me I should have settled down and had Jeff’s children. Paisleigh should have beenmydaughter, right? I should have tried harder to be a good wife.

I was a selfish, horrid woman who deserved to suffer for wantingmore.

At least I had my music. Maybe that was something they did right. Singing and playing piano was what made me dream of leaving. Much like the artists I signed onto my label, it was that dream that spurred me to get away from the life I was living and try for something more.

I knew my mother was rolling in her grave. When I took off to Nashville with a shred of hope and no money, she’d tried to bring me back.

I’d never forget her showing up on my apartment doorstep. I lived in an apartment I shared with Tommy, after meeting him at a bus stop—a questionable choice we still laughed about, given that it worked out. When my mom found out I was living with a man, she screamed that I turned to a life of sin.

When I told her he was gay? That only made everything a thousand times worse.

And that was the last time I saw her alive.

There was no greater hate than her love.

I still brought flowers to her grave every year.

Maybe they were flowers for who she could have been, if she’d been given the chance to grow.

I always said today was her death date, but really it was the date she had come to my door.

Numbness and resentment sat in the hollow cavern of my chest, next to a heart that was barely beating.

They buried her outside of Nashville, near where my grandparents were buried. My father’s choice. Her funeral was probably the last time I’d ever see him.

Drawing in a sharp breath, I tore my gaze from the headstone and looked up.

I froze. My brows knit together as I spotted a looming figure in the distance.

“Salt?”I whispered in disbelief.

I stood as still as the graves that surrounded me. Watching him. Salt stood facing a headstone, his expression colder than the icy morning.

I was intruding, wasn’t I? I continued to watch him though, my attention drawn from my own emptiness to the pain that radiated from him.

The memory of last Tuesday came roaring back. Then the moment in the elevator, where Jeff had humiliated me.

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