But that decision came with a steep price. To them, I was still Hannah the failure. Hannah the invisible. The burden. The plain daughter who had “settled into a life of mediocrity,” as my mother had once phrased it over Christmas dinner.

I hadn’t told them about Nathaniel for a reason. But standing there, holding the ruins of my dress while the smell of Aunt Carol’s wine drifted toward me, I knew the silence was over.

I wasn’t sure I could keep it in anymore. Because he was coming.

Not because I asked him to save me. Not because I cried on the phone. But because four hours ago, when I texted him that my mother had slashed my clothes and mocked me to my face, he had sent back a message containing only four words.

Send me the address.