My mother's house smells like jasmine and regret.

Not that she'd ever admit to the regret part. Dr. Patricia Chen is too composed for that, too practiced at maintaining the illusion that her life turned out exactly as intended. But I've learned to read the spaces between her words, the way her eyes linger on the empty wine glass at dinner, the particular silence she lapses into when my father's name comes up in conversation.

I'm sitting at her kitchen island on a Thursday night, supposedly here to catch up before State Championships. Really, I'm here because I couldn't stand being alone with my own thoughts for one more second.

"You're agitated," she says, not looking up from the salad she's assembling with surgical precision. Each piece of arugula positioned with care, as if the arrangement of greens could somehow fix what's broken inside her. "And you never come over on a school night unless something's bothering you. So let's skip the pleasantries and get to it."

This is what I inherited from her—the inability to bullshit, the compulsive need to cut through to the bone of things. It's useful in debate. It's devastating in family relationships.

"Nothing's bothering me," I lie.

She finally looks at me, and her dark eyes—my eyes—narrow with the kind of precision that makes witnesses crack on the stand. "Margot."

"I'm fine, Mom."

"You're lying, and you're doing it poorly." She sets down her knife with deliberate care. "Is it the merger? The new team dynamics?"

I pick at the edge of the marble countertop, a nervous habit she's always hated. "Everything's fine with the team."

"Then it's a boy."

My head snaps up so fast I nearly give myself whiplash. "What? No. There's no—"

"You're blushing." She sounds almost delighted, which is somehow worse than if she'd sounded concerned. "Oh my God, there's a boy. You're blushing, Margot. I haven't seen you blush since you were twelve."

Twelve. The year her marriage imploded. The year I learned that softness was a liability.

"Can we not do this right now?" I stand, needing to move, needing space between us. I walk to the window overlooking her garden—still immaculate, still perfect, still fundamentally empty.

"Is he from Riverside?" she presses, because of course she does. She's relentless when she smells blood in the water. "Do I know him?"

"His name is James Whitmore," I hear myself say, and immediately regret it. The words are out there now, floating in the jasmine-scented air like dandelion seeds, impossible to recapture.

"Whitmore. That's a good family." She's already pulling out her phone, no doubt mentally cataloging his family's net worth and social standing. "Is he smart?"

"Brilliant," I admit. "Infuriatingly brilliant."

"Handsome?"

I think about his tousled hair, the way he smiles like he knows something you don't, the warm brown of his eyes when he's looking at you like you're the only person in the room. The way his sandalwood-and-smoke scent clings to my clothes after we've been close.

"It doesn't matter," I say instead.

She's quiet for a moment, and when I turn back, she's watching me with an expression I can't quite read. Something sad. Something knowing.

"Come here," she says, patting the stool next to her.

I don't want to. I want to maintain the distance, the safety of being on opposite sides of the kitchen island. But I sit anyway, because she's my mother and because underneath all my armor, I'm still the scared twelve-year-old girl who overheard things she was never supposed to hear.

"I need to tell you something," Patricia says, and her voice has changed. It's softer now, stripped of its usual professional polish. "About your father. About us."

I'm already bracing for impact. This is not a conversation I want to have.

"When we were first married, I was obsessed with my career. You know that." She's staring at her hands, at the wedding ring she still wears despite the divorce being finalized five years ago. "I was going to be the best attorney in the state. I was going to change the system. I was going to be extraordinary."

"You are extraordinary," I say automatically.

"I was also absent," she continues, ignoring my protest. "I missed your father's promotions, his family dinners, his need for... softness. For someone to choose him over ambition." She finally looks at me. "And one day, he stopped asking me to choose. He just chose for both of us. He chose someone else."

The memory crashes over me like a wave.

I'm twelve years old, hidden at the top of the stairs, listening to my parents' voices rise in the living room below. My father's voice is tired, broken in a way I've never heard before.

"I can't keep competing with your career, Patricia. I can't keep being the consolation prize. You don't even see me anymore. You haven't in years."

And my mother's response, sharp and cutting: "That's not fair. I've given you everything."

"Everything except yourself. You're so afraid of being ordinary that you've made yourself untouchable. And you've made our daughter the same way. She's watching you, learning that love isn't worth the risk. That people aren't worth the time."

I remember thinking, in that crystalline moment of childhood clarity, that he was right. That softness was dangerous. That the only way to survive was to make yourself into something that couldn't be left behind.

"He said some things that night," my mother continues quietly, pulling me back to the present. "About how my ambition had made me unlovable. And I told myself he was wrong, that he was just angry, just being cruel. But part of me..." She swallows hard. "Part of me believed him."

"Mom—"

"I'm telling you this because I see you doing the same thing." Her hand reaches across the counter and covers mine. "I see you building walls higher than mine ever were. I see you treating people like obstacles to overcome instead of connections to cherish. And I see you looking at this James boy like he terrifies you more than losing a competition ever could."

My first instinct is to pull away, to defend myself with cutting wit and sarcasm. But something in her expression stops me. She's not trying to wound me. She's trying to save me.

"What if he leaves?" The question escapes before I can stop it. It's small and scared and utterly unlike me. "What if I let him in and he decides I'm not worth staying for?"

"Then you'll survive," she says simply. "Because you're strong enough to survive anything. But Margot, surviving and living are not the same thing. I've been surviving for five years. I don't recommend it."

We sit in silence for a long moment, her hand still covering mine. The jasmine from her garden drifts through the window, sweet and suffocating.

"I can't do this right now," I finally say, but it's not a refusal. It's a plea. "There's States. There's the partnership. I need to focus."

"I know." She squeezes my hand once before releasing it. "Just... don't wait too long to let someone in. You might find that the risk is worth it."

---

I leave her house at nine o'clock with her words still echoing in my skull and drive home in a daze, replaying every moment with James in the empty classroom. The way he cornered me. The way his voice dropped when he asked why I was afraid of working with him.

The way I'd wanted to tell him the truth: that I'm not afraid of failing with him. I'm afraid of succeeding. I'm afraid of what happens when he realizes that underneath the ice queen exterior is just a girl terrified of being ordinary, of being left behind, of being unlovable.

I'm afraid that if I let him close enough to see all of it, he'll do exactly what my father did.

My phone buzzes at 11:47 PM.

A text from an unknown number.

*Unknown: hey it's james. got your number from the team roster. sorry for the late text but i just watched some of your old debate footage and i need to know something

My heart rate spikes immediately. I shouldn't respond. I should turn my phone off and go to bed and maintain the careful distance I've constructed.

Instead, I type: What?

James: why do you debate like you're running from something? because in those videos, when you're in the zone, it's like you're not trying to win. you're trying to prove you exist.

I stare at that message for so long the screen goes dark. When I unlock it again, I notice he's added another text:

James: also fair warning—i'm apparently a masochist because i'm already planning tomorrow's practice and i can't stop thinking about how we're going to destroy this competition together. is that weird? that feels weird.

Despite everything—despite my mother's words still rattling around in my chest, despite the fear clawing at my throat, despite the very reasonable part of my brain screaming at me to maintain distance—I smile.

Me: Slightly weird. Mostly arrogant.

James: guilty. but also right. we're going to be unstoppable.

Me: We'll see.

James: no you won't. you'll know. that's the thing about you, margot. you don't do anything halfway. when you commit to something, you commit completely. so tomorrow, i need you to commit to us. to this partnership. to trusting me even though it scares the shit out of you.

My hands are shaking.

Me: That's a lot to ask.

James: i know. but i'm asking anyway. see you tomorrow?

I should say no. I should protect myself, maintain the walls, keep this professional.

Me: Yeah. Tomorrow.

James: wear something you don't mind getting wrinkled. we're doing a full run-through and i plan to argue you into a corner so thoroughly you'll have no choice but to get close to defeat it.

Me: Is that a threat or a promise?

James: both. definitely both.

I set my phone down and press my palms against my eyes, trying to stop the trembling in my chest.

My mother's voice echoes: "Surviving and living are not the same thing."

And James's voice, from the empty classroom: "Why are you so afraid of working with me?"

The answer, I realize, is that I'm not afraid of working with him.

I'm terrified of what happens when I stop being afraid.

Because somewhere between his texts and my mother's warnings and the memory of my father's broken voice, I've started to understand that the walls I built weren't meant to keep people out.

They were meant to keep me in.

Safe.

Alone.

Untouchable.

But James is looking at my old debate footage at midnight on a school night and texting me about how I debate like I'm running from something. James is planning our strategy like we're already a unit, already a force. James is asking me to trust him when trust is the one thing I've never been able to give.

And the scariest part isn't that he might leave.

It's that he might actually stay.

And if he does, I'm going to have to become someone new. Someone softer. Someone brave enough to let herself be seen.

Someone who might get hurt.

I look at his last text again: "wear something you don't mind getting wrinkled."*

And despite everything—despite the fear, despite my mother's cautionary tale, despite every instinct screaming at me to protect myself—I'm already planning what to wear tomorrow.

Already counting down the hours.

Already imagining the way his eyes will look when I arrive, the way his sandalwood-and-smoke scent will fill whatever small space they put us in, the way his voice will sound when he's trying to convince me that we're unstoppable.

I'm already falling.

And the worst part is, I think I want to.