But deep down, I knew I would.
The road back to Cedar Springs hadn’t changed much — the same cracked billboards, the same weathered barns leaning against the wind. But I had changed. I wasn’t that terrified teenager anymore; I was a woman who had fought for every inch of her dignity. Still, as I turned down Maple Drive and saw the Harper farmhouse rising in the distance, my hands began to tremble on the steering wheel.
Lily stared out the window.
“So this is where you grew up?”
I nodded.
“Yeah. That house used to feel like the whole world to me.”
My voice wavered as memories surged — my mother humming gospel songs while cooking, my father fixing fences, Daniel teasing me about my pigtails. But those memories were quickly shadowed by the night I left — the yelling, the slammed door, the silence that followed.
