Garrett’s POV
The new house still didn’t feel like home. It was too big, too polished, like someone had taken every dream my mom used to whisper about on those cold nights after Dad died and turned it into cold marble and gleaming hardwood. My room alone was bigger than our entire old apartment back in the city. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over manicured lawns that probably cost more to maintain than Mom used to make in a month. I should have been grateful. I was grateful, mostly. But every time I walked through the front door, the same dull ache settled behind my ribs.
Mom had been lonely for three years. Three long, silent years where she worked double shifts and came home with shadows under her eyes. When Richard proposed, I told her I was happy for her. I meant it. Richard wa
