From Best Friend To Fiancé (Savannah and Roman) novel Chapter 146

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**TITLE: Dreams Folding Into Broken Time**
**Chapter 146**

Uncle Jace.

I hesitated, my heart racing as I processed the sound of his name.

Unlike the others in our family, Jace had always been the one who occupied the shadows, lingering at the edges of our chaotic gatherings. He was never one to insert himself into the fray, preferring to remain a quiet observer. Harmless. He was the uncle who, at family reunions, would slyly slip me extra pieces of candy when no one was watching, the one who would ask about my school life but never seemed to really listen to my answers, and he was the one who never took sides. To him, choosing a side meant admitting that a battle was being fought, and he preferred to remain blissfully ignorant of the conflict swirling around us.

And perhaps that was why I answered him.

“Say?” His voice crackled through the speaker, weary yet edged with a hint of relief. “Thank God. Thank God you finally picked up. We’ve been trying to reach you for days.”

“I’m alive, Uncle Jace.” My tone was flat, almost surgical in its precision. “I just didn’t feel like talking to any of you.”

He sighed heavily, the sound reverberating through the line, a weight that almost rattled the receiver. “I understand, sweetheart. I truly do. But your mother has been worried sick. Everyone has been worried sick about you.”

“Right,” I muttered, bitterness curling around each word like smoke. “Considering they all just stood by while Chloe tore me apart piece by piece, I bet they’re really concerned. I mean, who’s Chloe going to pick on now?”

“Sav, don’t speak like that—”

“I’ll speak however the hell I want,” I shot back, my voice rising with every syllable. “I’m not a child anymore.”

The silence on the other end of the line stretched, thick and suffocating. He tried again, softer this time, coaxing me as if I were a toddler throwing a fit. “Siblings fight sometimes, Sav. Chloe loves you too, in her own… strange way.”

“Love?” I scoffed, disbelief lacing my words. “She doesn’t love me, and you know that.”

He paused, as if weighing his next words carefully. “Sav… don’t talk like that. Your mom’s worried sick. Chloe is still your sister, no matter what’s happened.”

Something inside me snapped, a fragile thread fraying under the weight of his words.

It was the same tired script, the same rehearsed lines I had been force-fed for more than two decades. Excuses masquerading as wisdom. Platitudes that swept my pain under the rug, dismissing it as if it were nothing.

I almost laughed, but instead, my eyes burned with unshed tears.

“No, Uncle Jace,” I said, my voice trembling, “she doesn’t love me. She never did. And don’t you dare sit there and tell me otherwise. Chloe is not my sister. She is my enemy. She made that abundantly clear. And I’m done pretending otherwise.”