The house was too clean.
That's the first thing I noticed when I walked in how spotless everything looked. Like my mother had spent the afternoon scrubbing the floors, not because they were dirty, but because something inside her was.
She didn't sit down.
She didn't ask me to.
She stood in the living room, arms crossed, mouth pressed into a thin line. The photo sat open on her phone screen, like it was evidence.
"Is it true?" she asked.
I didn't look away.
"Yes."
Her fingers tightened slightly around the phone.
"With that girl."
"She has a name," I said quietly. "Kellie."
My mother exhaled through her nose. It wasn't anger, exactly. It was worse disappointment dressed in politeness.
"This isn't like you."
"Maybe you don't know me as well as you think."
Her eyes flicked up to mine, sharp and fast.
"I raised you to be smart. Careful. You're on track for university. People look up to you."
"And now I'm not any of those things?" My voice cracked just a little.
My father was quiet in the kitchen, pretending not to listen. He always did that. Let her speak for both of them.
"I'm not saying you're" She stopped. Started again. "I'm saying you don't need to make your life harder. People already expect too much from girls like you."
Girls like me.
Girls who are too perfect, too polite, too poised.
Too easy to put on a pedestal and harder to love when they fall.
"I'm not ashamed," I said.
"You should be cautious."
"I've been cautious. My whole life."
That silenced her.
I took a breath. "I've lived carefully. Quietly. And it didn't make me happy. It just made me small."
Her mouth opened, then closed.
I softened. "She doesn't make me smaller. She makes me braver."
Silence bloomed in the room like smoke.
And then, slowly, she sat down.
Her voice was different now. Quieter. Not cold just tired.
"Do you love her?"
I didn't blink. "Yes."
My mother stared at her hands for a long time. Then finally said:
"I'll need time."
That night, I sat on my bed in silence.
My phone buzzed once.
Kellie:
> are you okay?
I stared at the screen.
And then I wrote:
Rose:
> I think I will be.
She didn't say yes.
But she didn't say no.
I think that's a beginning.