Renna Rose Lancaster is the girl people stare at like she belongs in a glass case, carved with angel-soft beauty, a life airbrushed into unattainable perfection. But Renna knows perfection is nothing but a golden prison, coated in pretty lies that k...
"Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same."
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The piano looked like it had been abandoned by time itself.
A layer of dust shimmered faintly in the dim lamplight, settling over the black keys like quiet grief. Someone had once loved it; someone had once made the air in this room sing. Now it sat there like an open wound no one dared to touch.
My head was resting on Mama's lap, her fingers trailing absently through my hair, slow and tender the way they always were when her mind was far away. Across from us, Aza sat on the edge of the opposite couch, her face soft and pale beneath the glow. She was trying to smile, that careful smile that looks beautiful until you notice it never reaches her eyes.
From the other room came the clink of glasses and the low hum of men pretending they had something worth saying. Raphael's laugh rose, too loud, too slurred, then faded into the scrape of a bottle. Daddy's voice followed-superior, the sound of someone who has never once been desperate. I closed my eyes tighter.
If there's a hell, it probably sounds like that.
Mama broke the silence first. "You've got music here, but it feels like it's been asleep for years."
Aza's eyes drifted toward the piano. For a moment, her lips twitched-almost a smile, but not quite. "It has," she said softly. "No one listens anymore. So why would I?"
Mama frowned. "You mean Raphael doesn't want you to play?"
Aza's gaze lingered on the keys, and for a second I thought she'd answer. But she only shrugged. "Once... once he loved when I played. When the house listened."
When the house listened.
That line sank somewhere deep, like a pebble thrown into the quiet. I tilted my head, pretending to doze, but really I was watching.
Mama tilted her head, her hand stilling in my hair. "You can tell me anything, you know. Your marriage... it doesn't feel right. Not like before." She leaned forward, eyes sharp now. "What happened to you two? You and Raphael used to be the kind of couple that made the rest of us gag."
Mama didn't buy it. "You don't get to say that, not after what we saw tonight. The way Raphael spoke to you, to Aadam-that wasn't a bad day, that's a life gone wrong."
Aza's eyes darted toward her, and for a second, I saw the flicker of alarm-the instinct to hide the truth because it had never been safe to share it.
"There's nothing to tell," she whispered, giving a small, brittle smile. "It's just... life."
"Bollocks," Mama snapped, not even bothering to sugarcoat it. "Pain has a smell, and this whole house reeks of it."
