Seraphina's Point Of View
The click of the shutter sounded, and I felt a sudden, sharp sting at the corners of my eyes. Hot, traitorous moisture threatened to spill over my eyelashes, and I quickly blinked it back, tilting my head up slightly toward the fading Texas twilight so the lens wouldn't catch it.
For twenty-four years, I had craved a father. I'd watched kids at school being picked up on shoulders, watched girls dance on their fathers' shoes at weddings, and every single time, I had locked that hollow, aching hunger deep inside a steel vault in my chest.
I had made absolutely sure to hide it, burying it under layers of sarcasm and overachievement, because the last thing I ever wanted was to make my mother feel sad or inadequate. She had been my everything.
