Prologue
POV: Camila
“Wow, that’s… I envy your closeness,” Micah mused.
I looked at him, annoyance flickering through me. I knew that casual, curious, and faux-sincere tone. It was sarcasm dressed up as observation, Micah's favorite self-expression.
Normally, I would’ve snapped back with something sharp. Something that reminded him I wasn’t a charity case or a curiosity exhibit. Instead, I stayed quiet. I didn’t have it in me right now.
The run-in with my mother and sister still clung to me like smoke. Not loud enough to choke on, but it was persistently everywhere, from my clothes down to my lungs.
I felt hollowed out, scraped raw in places no one ever saw. I was too drained to spar and too tired to perform the version of myself that always had something clever locked and loaded.
It was probably for the best because beneath the calm surface, something violent was coiling inside me. Not the kind that left bruises, but the kind that rearranged things—beliefs, instincts, and the internal architecture of what I’d once thought love was supposed to be.
I had been wired to trust them from the beginning. Before I had words or choices, my body had already memorized their voices, their faces, and the gravity of their presence. They were meant to be my first shelter. My baseline for safety.
Instead, they became the lesson.
When the people who were supposed to protect you became the ones who kept choosing to hurt you, or worse, choosing the people who did, it didn’t just wound me. It rewrote me.
It taught my nervous system that love came with conditions. That affection was transactional. That loyalty meant quietly swallowing pain so no one else had to feel uncomfortable.
The rage came in waves. It was hot, suffocating, and laced with shame.
I was angry at them for failing me. Angry at myself for still wanting them anyway. Angry at a world that excused cruelty if it came wrapped in blood ties and childhood photos.
I wanted to scream that loyalty shouldn’t require self-destruction, but I already knew how that conversation would go.
They’re family. As if that justified betrayal.
The pain ran deeper than anger. It was grief stacked on grief. Grief for the family I needed and never had, and the version of me that kept believing this time would be different.
Every betrayal landed harder than the last, not because it surprised me, but because it confirmed the truth I kept circling like a wound I refused to look at: I mattered less than their comfort, denial, and their need to keep the peace.
Still, I showed up, I forgave, and I shrank. I learned how to make myself agreeable, palatable, and easy to dismiss. Every time they sided against me, something inside cracked. Not loudly or all at once, but just enough that I felt it settle in me like damage.
Being forced to be “okay” with it was its own betrayal.
I learned how to smile through it. How to endure and to expect nothing. Except I always did.
The betrayal was never one moment. It was cumulative. Choice after choice where they didn’t choose me. And somewhere along the way, I started to understand the truth I’d been avoiding for years: love that demands silence isn’t love at all.
I let out a slow, contained, but sharp breath, feeling the tension settle low in my chest. When I finally looked back at Micah, I made my face blank so that whatever he was about to say next, I was going to be ready for it.
Micah tilted his head, studying me for a beat too long. Not the way people usually looked at me, like I was a headline or a problem to solve, but like he was reading something just beneath my skin.
It immediately made my shoulders tense, though my face remained neutral.
Then his mouth curved into that infuriating half-smile. The one that always made it feel like I was already losing a game I hadn’t agreed to play.
“You know,” he said lightly, “you’ve got your sister beat in the looks department by a mile.”
I blinked once, then again, because that wasn't where I thought this was going.
He lifted a hand before I could react, already smirking. “Don’t get excited. I’m just being objective.”
“Wow,” I said flatly. “Objectifying women now? Bold move for a man whose career depends on public favor.”
He laughed softly and was unbothered. “Please. I get booed professionally.”
“Shocking.”
“Devastating,” he agreed.
I should’ve rolled my eyes or fired back something meaner and sharper. Instead, I felt… unmoored. The compliment landed wrong—not offensive, but not welcome either. It was just unexpected. It slid into the space my family had left raw and did something irritatingly gentle there.
Micah watched my reaction with open interest, like he was cataloging it for later.
Then he added, “Shame about the crazy reporter thing, though. Really drags down the overall package.”
I scoffed despite myself. “Oh, you’re one to talk. You athletes get paid millions to kick a ball and still manage to complain about the press.”
“Correction,” he said. “We get paid millions to chase a ball. Very different skill set.”
“Truly inspiring.”
He grinned. “You’re welcome.”
I crossed my arms, grounding myself. “You realize you just insulted my profession and complimented my face in the same breath.”
“Efficiency,” he said. “I’m big on multitasking.”
I stared at him. “You’re impossible.”
“And yet,” he said easily, “here you are.”
That did it. That little flicker of awareness in his eyes. Like he knew exactly what button he’d pressed.
Annoyance flared, quick and bright, but underneath it was something worse: confusion. Because his teasing wasn’t cruel. It never was. Micah didn’t mock to diminish; he did it to deflect. It was to lighten and pretend weight didn’t exist when it very clearly did.
And somehow, he’d seen everything.
