Claude answered his own question before she could. "Because I wanted you to figure it out yourself, Ashy. The world, I mean. I wanted you to learn with your own two eyes just how cruel it can be, how many smiling faces are hiding knives behind their teeth, and how every kind word from a stranger usually comes with a price tag stitched into the lining."
Astrid looked back at him and shook her head slowly. "Dad, you've got it all wrong. All of it."
"Have I?" He wore the look of a man profoundly let down. "Look at yourself, dear. You aren't the daughter I know. My daughter doesn't bend for anyone. My daughter doesn't defy her father in one breath and defend a man she's known a handful of months in the next."
"The girl I raised may be naïve, but not this naïve, not so far gone she can't even see what's being done to her. So forgive me if I can't quite recognize whoever's wearing your face tonight, because someone has very clearly crawled into your head and made themselves at home."
