Hailey's pov
The parking lot was nearly empty now, the late afternoon sun dipping low and casting long shadows across the asphalt. I sat in my car, engine off, staring at Elena through the open window like she was a ghost from a past I’d tried hard to bury.
She stood there in her designer coat, sunglasses pushed up into her perfectly highlighted hair, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue that looked too expensive to cry into. The tears came in perfect, glistening drops—one, two—rolling down her cheeks like she’d practiced the timing in a mirror.
“Hailey, sweetheart,” she said, voice trembling just enough to sound sincere. “I’m so sorry. For everything. The way your father treated you, the way I… I just stood by. You were a child, and I should have protected you. I should have been better.
