Page 84 of I Wish I Would've Warned You

“She was supposed to be my friend.”

“She still is,” I say gently. “That’s why she didn’t have the heart to say anything. None of this was about hurting you, Taylor. I promise. There was no malice in it.”

She glares at me. Anger, then something else—something hollow—passes through her expression.

“Okay,” she says, voice low. “Taking me out of it... why would you do this to your dad? After everything he’s done for you?”

I don’t answer.

Instead, I turn back to the canvas and dip my brush into a muted blue. My strokes are controlled, deliberate. Because right now, this is the only thing I know how to hold.

When I finally look over my shoulder, she’s gone.

And for the first time all day, I let myself breathe.

36A

EMILY

My mother is sitting on the edge of my dorm room bed with her arms crossed like a judge ready to hand down a sentence.

I have no idea how the hell she got in—or who let her in—but I’m already bracing for the inevitable crowd that’ll gather outside my door. Drama spreads fast in shared hallways.

I drop my bag to the floor and close the door behind me. No words. Just a stare. I wait for her to draw first.

“From here,” she says, eyes dragging over me like I’m a dress she regrets buying, “you almost look like a woman I was proud to call my daughter.”

I bite my tongue so hard I taste blood.

“I don’t know if you were dating him just to spite me, or if you actually slipped and fell on his dick and decided to keep riding it, but I am utterly ashamed of you.”

“You knew how much he meant to me,” she hisses. “He was the love of my life. My one.”

“Every guy is yourone,” I snap, the words out before I can stop them. “Like, be fucking for real.”

“Watch your mouth.”

“He was number twenty-one.” My voice cracks. “Twenty. Fucking. One. And I guess I should be grateful we’ve only moved half as many times, right? Small wins.”

“Emily—”

“You want to talk about betrayal?” My breath shakes. “You want to ask me how I could do this toyou?”

Her mouth twitches. Defensive. Ready to twist the story in her favor, like always.

“It wasn’t about you.” My voice rises. “Everything isn’t always aboutyouand whatever new guy makes you feel twenty again. I didn’t betray you—I chose you.”

She blinks.

“I loved him.” The words scrape out of me, ragged and raw. “Before you ever got your hands on him, I loved him. And when you moved in, when the wedding happened, when you paraded him around like he was some prize—I let it all go. Foryou. I gave him up. I swallowed it and I smiled through every family dinner and every fake holiday photo and every time you called him baby.”

I step forward, my throat tight with everything I’ve never said.

“But I don’t owe you silence forever. And I won’t pretend you didn’t bulldoze your way through my life and call it love.”

“If you keep speaking to me like this, you won’t like the consequences.”

“Go ahead.” I shrug. “Tell me what they’ll be. I’m not coming home again for you to enforce them anyway.”

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