Hate Me Like You Love Me (Serena and Caleb) novel Chapter 51

Serena’s POV

Grief doesn’t fade with time—it just learns to hide in smaller spaces, waiting for a single word to set it free.

I sit alone in the kitchen, coffee cooling between my hands, staring at the steam curling up from the mug without really seeing it.

Sleep came in fragments last night, each stretch of darkness interrupted by the same loop playing behind my closed eyes.

Caleb’s voice cutting through me. Rachel’s face lingering where it doesn’t belong. The slam of doors echoing through empty silence.

There is no us.

I take a sip of coffee and find it’s gone lukewarm, bitter on my tongue.

“Good morning, sweetheart.”

Catherine’s voice floats in from the doorway, warm and bright despite the early hour. She’s dressed already, blonde hair swept back from her face, a steaming mug clutched in her own hands.

She slides into the chair across from me with the ease of someone who belongs in this kitchen, in this house, in this life.

“Morning.” I manage a smile that probably looks as hollow as it feels.

“Couldn’t sleep?” She tilts her head, studying me with the gentle concern of a mother who’s learned to read between the lines. “You look exhausted, honey. Is everything alright?”

“Just a lot on my mind.”

“Of course there is.”

She reaches across the table and covers my hand with hers, the touch meant to comfort.

“You’ve got so much happening right now. The engagement, school, figuring out your future—it’s a lot for anyone to carry.”

If only you knew.

“I’ve been thinking…”

Catherine’s eyes light up with enthusiasm she can barely contain.

“About the wedding. I know it’s early, and I don’t want to pressure you, but I’d love to help when you’re ready. Looking at venues, choosing colors, all of it. Your father and I want this to be everything you’ve dreamed of.”

“Catherine…”

“Lucas seems so committed.”

She barrels forward, oblivious to the tension creeping into my shoulders.

“The way he proposed, making sure your father approved first, being so patient about the timeline—he really is a wonderful young man. You’re lucky to have found someone who respects tradition like that.”

Respects tradition. Is that what we’re calling it?

“I know your mother would have loved to see this day.”

Catherine’s voice softens, and something in my chest seizes.

“Elizabeth always wanted you to find someone who would take care of you. She told me once, not long before she got sick, that her biggest fear was leaving you before she could see you happy.”

I can’t breathe.

“I just want you to be happy, bunny.”

The word cracks something open inside me. Bunny.

The memory floods in without warning—vivid, golden, devastating in its clarity.

My mother in the kitchen of our old house, flour dusting her cheek, teaching me how to measure ingredients while humming off-key to some song playing softly on the radio.

“The people who love you, really love you, will never make you feel small. Remember that, bunny.”

What would you think of all this, Mom?

I sink onto the edge of my bed, the locket clutched against my chest like a talisman against the chaos consuming my life.

Would you be disappointed? Would you understand? Would you have seen through Lucas the way you always saw through people who wore their kindness like costumes?

The resentment sitting heavy in my chest isn’t about Catherine being bad. I know that. She’s only ever been kind to me, welcoming, eager to love a grieving girl who desperately needed a mother figure.

She stepped into a role that was never meant to be hers and filled it with grace I couldn’t appreciate.

That’s what makes it worse.

It’s not about Catherine. It’s about my mother being replaced—seamlessly, efficiently, like swapping out a broken part in a machine that kept running without pause.

It’s about no one ever asking if I was ready. No one checking whether fourteen-year-old Serena had processed her grief before handing her a new family and expecting gratitude.

I open the locket and stare at my mother’s face, searching for answers she can’t give.

You told me people who love me wouldn’t make me feel small. But what about the people who make me feel invisible? What about the ones who erase you a little more every day without even realizing they’re doing it?

The tears come quietly, sliding down my cheeks in hot tracks I don’t bother to wipe away.

Somewhere in this house, Caleb is nursing his own wounds from our fight. Somewhere out there, Lucas is planning his next move.

And somewhere deep inside me, a fourteen-year-old girl is still waiting for someone to ask if she’s okay.

No one ever has.

Maybe that’s why I keep making choices that hurt me—because I never learned I was allowed to choose something else.