Hate Me Like You Love Me (Serena and Caleb) novel Chapter 98

Serena’s POV

Some conversations wait for you at the kitchen table no matter how many years you spend walking past them.

Catherine moves through the space with the quiet efficiency of someone who has learned which cabinets stick and which burner runs hot.

She fills the kettle, sets out two mugs, drops chamomile bags into each one without asking if I want any.

I sit at the table with a legal pad full of dates, watching her move through this space like she was born to it.

"The preliminary hearing is set for Monday the fourteenth." Catherine pulls the kettle off before it whistles — a habit she picked up because the sound used to make Caleb flinch.

"Simon's contestation runs Wednesday through Friday the same week, so there might be scheduling conflicts with overlapping witnesses."

"I can testify Monday and still be available midweek for Simon's hearing." I glance down at the legal pad.

"Caleb's testimony is Thursday. We should make sure he's not on the stand the same day, so the judge gets two distinct perspectives instead of a coordinated front."

"That's smart." She sets a steaming mug in front of me and lowers herself into the opposite chair. "You think like a lawyer. Elizabeth always said you would."

The name lands between us with a weight Catherine doesn't seem to notice.

Or maybe she does, because her hands still on the mug and her eyes lift to mine with the careful attention of a woman who has been waiting six years for this conversation.

"You mention her a lot." My voice comes out steadier than I expect. "My mother."

"She was my closest friend for fifteen years before she was your father's wife."

"I know that."

"Do you?"

The question is gentle, but it presses against the bruise I have been protecting since I was fourteen. The clock on the wall fills the silence, each tick measured and relentless.

‘Say it. After six years of swallowing this, just say it.’

"I resented you for replacing her."

The words hang in the air between the steam from our mugs, bare and ugly and finally free. I watch Catherine's face for the flinch, the defensive tightening I have braced for since I was a teenager too polite to speak.

It doesn't come.

Catherine sets her mug down, wraps both hands around it, and holds my gaze with an openness that makes my chest ache.

"Tell me." Her voice is low, stripped of everything except willingness. "All of it."

"You moved us into a new house six months after she died and started a life like the old one never existed."

My throat tightens. "New kitchen. New curtains. New family photos before I'd even packed away the old ones. And nobody asked if I was ready."

"Serena—"

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