Chapter 523: Reclaiming Her Lost Self

The sentence hit the office harder than any slap.

Richard’s face twisted—shock, disbelief, panic, the whole emotional slot machine cycling at once. His hands gripped the desk like he needed the wood to keep him upright.

"You can’t." It was a plea.

"Oh, I can," Patricia said. "And I am."

He moved toward her again, instinctively, but she recoiled so violently she hit the wall. Hands up like he was a threat—which he was.

"Don’t

touch

me!"

That stopped him dead. Not out of respect, but out of realization. She meant it.

"I can’t stand your hands on me," Patricia whispered. "Not when my

real

man just did."

She swallowed hard. Straightened.

"I belong to someone else now," she repeated, quieter but firmer. "Body and soul. And I’m not letting you poison that."

Richard’s lips curled into something almost like a sneer. "This is about the affair. Whoever you’ve been—"

"No," Patricia said. "This is about years of being slowly erased.

HE

just reminded me I was still in the world."

His businessman brain flicked back on, hands slicing through the air as he paced.

"Do you know what this will do to Morrison Constructions? The Delgado merger—Patterson—BioLa—the stadium contract—"

"I don’t care."

"You should!" he snapped. "Jack’s future depends on this. His reputation. His Stanford applications—"

"There it is again," Patricia said coldly. "The longest speech you’ve given me in years and every word was about contracts and future investors. Not one word about loving me. Not one word about wanting me."

Richard’s mouth opened. Closed. Glitched.

"Patricia, I—of course I care—"

"Then tell me one real thing about me." She stepped closer. "One thing. Anything. Prove you’ve actually seen me these past years."

Silence.

A big, ugly, echoing silence.

Patricia felt something in her chest unclench.

"You can’t," she said softly. "And that tells me everything."

"Patricia, listen—divorce at your age, you’ll lose your lifestyle—"

"I’d rather lose my lifestyle than my life," she said. "Because that’s what this marriage has been: a slow

death

with designer curtains."

Richard flinched. Actually flinched.

"For once," Patricia said, her voice sharp enough to cut open the air, "I’m choosing me. Not Morrison Constructions. Not your reputation. Not Jack’s Stanford résumé."

She opened the door.

"And if your mergers fall apart?" Her voice was ice. "Good. Maybe you’ll both learn something."

She stepped out into the hall.

Jack was there, leaning against the wall like he’d been punched in the gut mid-eavesdrop. His cheek was still red.

"So that’s it?" Jack snapped. "You’re just blowing up the family? Making Dad look like a joke? Making me the kid from a broken home?"

Patricia studied him. Really studied him. Saw the arrogance. The entitlement. The cracks underneath.

"You’re doing that yourself," she said quietly.

Jack scoffed. "What is

that

supposed to mean?"

"It means," Patricia said, voice suddenly sharp, "you learned from him perfectly. How to treat women like furniture. How to value image over humanity. How to think love is something you control instead of something you give."

"Jesus Christ—"

"You’re eighteen, Jack." Her voice softened—just barely. "You still have time to become someone different. But right now? Right now, you are your father’s son."

Jack’s jaw clenched.

"And that," Patricia finished, "terrifies me."

Jack’s face was so red he looked like a malfunctioning traffic light.

"Good!" he barked, voice cracking like it forgot puberty was supposed to be over. "Because you know what? I’d rather be like Dad than like you! At least he has power! At least people respect him! You’re just... you’re nothing! You’ve always been nothing! Just the woman in the background, trying so hard to matter, and nobody cares!"

Classic Jack. All volume, zero self-awareness.

A month ago, those words would’ve folded Patricia in half. Destroyed her. Sent her into one of those quiet breakdowns mothers are supposed to have in laundry rooms.

Now? She just felt tired. Not wounded—just... sad. Like watching a kid kick a door because he lost at a board game.

"What do you even know?" she murmured.

Instead of screaming back, she stepped forward.

Jack actually backed up. That alone almost made her laugh.

"You’re right," she said, voice soft in a way that made the anger drain right off him. "I was nothing. For a long time. I let myself be nothing. Let your father make me nothing. Let

you

treat me like I was nothing."

His jaw twitched.

"But I’m not nothing anymore."

Jack blinked, thrown off. Probably not used to her standing still long enough to cast a shadow.

"And someday," she added, "you’re going to look back on this moment and realize what you lost. Not because I was your mother. But because you never bothered to know me. Never saw me as a person. Just like your father."

Jack made a disgusted sound—somewhere between a scoff and a dying squirrel. "Whatever. Go fuck your boyfriend. Go ruin our lives. See if I care."

The secret rose in her throat again—

that

secret, the one she’d kept buried for years. The one that could drop a nuclear bomb on everything Jack thought he knew.

Oh,

she wanted to say it. God, she wanted to watch his smug face glitch when he realized—

No.

That truth wasn’t a knife. It was a wound. And she wasn’t turning it into a weapon, no matter how tempting it felt in this very stupid moment.

"I hope someday you learn," Patricia said instead. "I hope someone makes you feel the way you’ve made Sofia feel. The way your father made me feel. The way you’ve made countless girls feel. I hope it breaks you open. And I hope you grow from it."

She turned toward the stairs.

Behind her: "Mom—"

She paused. Didn’t turn. "What?"

Silence.

A breath. A hesitation. A tiny tremor of something real.

But it vanished. Jack stuffed the vulnerable part of himself back into whatever emotional shoebox he kept taped shut.

"...Nothing," he muttered. "Forget it."

The moment passed.

She climbed the stairs, feeling heavier with each step. Behind her: a punch against the wall. A curse. A door slamming hard enough that the house felt it.

Patricia didn’t look back.

In the master bedroom, she pulled out a suitcase. Started folding clothes with the numb efficiency of someone who’s done this in her head a hundred times.

She’d stay in the house—she had to until the lawyers finished carving the marriage into pieces—but she wasn’t sharing a bed with Richard anymore.

Not his room. Not his sheets. Not the ghost of a man who only loved mirrors.

Her phone buzzed.

Eros:

How’d it go?

Patricia exhaled slowly. Despite everything—despite the emotional grenades, the war she’d basically declared—she smiled.

Her:

Told them. Richard’s panicking about business optics. Jack’s... being Jack. But I did it.

He responded instantly.

Eros:

I’m so fucking proud of you. You’re the bravest person I know. You want me to come get you?

She looked around the room: the furniture chosen to impress guests, the framed smiles that felt like props, the bed that had been cold long before the marriage was.

Her:

Not yet. I need to pack. But tonight... can I come to the penthouse? I need you. Need to remember why this was worth it.

Eros:

Always. I’ll be waiting. I love you.

Her:

I love you too.

She set the phone down. Kept packing.

Outside the window, the gardens glowed gold in the late light. Pretty. Empty. Like decoration for people who didn’t know how to feel things without an audience.

But somewhere across LA, there was a penthouse. And in it, a teenage god who actually saw her. Who made her feel like she wasn’t a ghost moving through someone else’s life.

For the first time in seventeen years, Patricia felt oxygen in her lungs again.

And the war? Oh, it was coming. Richard would fight. Jack would hate. The Morrison name would bare its teeth.

But Patricia would survive.

She’d finally remembered she was worth surviving

for

.

And no one—not Richard, not Jack, not the whole polished empire of Morrison Constructions—would ever make her invisible again.