Chapter 23
I watched the storm from my bed. It was still early, but the dark clouds made it feel like night had returned. Rain traced slow rivers down the glass. Thunder grumbled somewhere deep, coming closer.
My mom and I sat in silence for a while. Neither of us spoke—just the hum of the storm and the low static on the line.
“How have you guys been?” I finally asked, cutting through the awkward quiet. My voice sounded fake, stiff. The words hung there, uncomfortable and out of place. There was no bond left between us. Maybe there never was.
“I get by,” she said.
“That’s good.”
Another pause. Longer this time.
Then her voice came sharp and flat: “Emily, what do you want?”
Straight to the point. No sugarcoating. Just Mom being Mom. I pressed my lips together, bracing myself. This wouldn’t turn warm and fuzzy.
“I need to talk to Dad,” I said.
The rain tapped harder against the glass.
“Guess you’re a bit late then,” she said. “Your father died two years ago.”
I blinked hard, trying to process what I’d just heard.
“What? Dad died?”
“Fell drunk into a ditch walking back from the bar. The water puddle was only twenty inches deep, but he landed face-first and was too drunk to wake up. Drowned in gutter water like some homeless drunk, face down in a mix of his own piss and runoff.”
I gripped the phone tighter. Her raw description didn’t help. What a pathetic death for a pathetic man. I didn’t understand why it hurt. It sounded like justice, considering what he’d done to me. To her. But it still stung. A tear rolled hot down my cheek.
“Why didn’t you call me? Tell me?”
Her voice snapped back sassy. “Because you didn’t want me to, remember?”
My throat tightened. “That’s not fair—”
“Fair?” she cut in. “You cut us off. After all the chaos you stirred up with Uncle Ben and your father. All the accusations. After all we did for you. God, Emily. You brought problems wherever you went.”
“Are you blaming me?” I asked, my voice rising. “They were hurting us. They were hurting me. I was just a child. How can you blame me for the horror they did to us?”
She huffed, sarcastic and cold. “Good God. Even now, you’re starting with your drama again. I see you still can’t let anything go. You dig your nails into problems to get attention.”
I swallowed hard. This was exactly why I’d stopped calling. Her. Dad. The way they always twisted it. Why had I expected anything different?
I heard a rustle on her end. She was getting ready to hang up. This wasn’t a moment of reconnection. It wasn’t a mother-daughter reunion. There was no closure, just the same poison dripping from her lips.
I had to act.
“Can you answer one thing?” I asked. “Just one. Then I’ll never call you again. I promise.”
She sighed. “Fine. But make it quick. Bobby’s getting up soon.”
I didn’t bother asking who Bobby was. Probably another deadbeat loser. Another monster in a long line of them.
“Do you remember the night Dad beat us? The night he dragged me across the floor and that nail caught my neck?”
“Emily, this nonsense—”
“No, Mom!” I snapped. “Don’t do that. You defended a monster his whole life. Don’t carry that lie into his grave. He’s dead, Mom. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
The tears were rolling hard now.
“But me . . . you can still hurt me. I’m still here.
I’m not asking for hugs or apologies. Just .
. . something. Even the smallest acknowledgment.
A ‘yeah, life was shit for you’ or a ‘you’re right, he was abusive, and I didn’t know how to protect you better.
’ That would give me something. Something I’ve needed for so long. ”
Another silence.
Then she exhaled, slow and heavy. “Your dad . . .” she began, and her voice sounded different. Softer.
I straightened up.
“Your dad wasn’t perfect, Emily. But he wasn’t the monster you always try to make him out to be.”
The rage hit so hard, I nearly crushed the phone in my hand. “You’re still defending him?” I shot to my feet. “He is gone. He can’t hurt you anymore. And you’re still defending him?
In that moment, it became clear. She wasn’t just a victim. She was part of the sickness.
“And what about Uncle Ben?” I pushed. “The time he tried to rape me? Is that just more ‘drama for attention’? Is that what you tell yourself?”
“Emily, our family wasn’t perfect but—”
I cut her off. “Wasn’t perfect? He tried to rape me in my sleep! I was just a kid! Your kid! And all you have to say is ‘we weren’t perfect’? What about Dad? His violent outbursts? You lied. You covered for him. I’m starting to remember it all, Mom. As clear as day.”
She scoffed and muttered something under her breath. Then said, louder, “Well, is that all then, Emily? Because I’m not well. Heart problems. So unless you’re planning on finishing me off over the phone with your dramatic performance, I’d like to go before this call sends me to my grave.”
I slumped back onto the bed. This was worse than the scar on my neck. This was even worse than the psychological violence. The way she twisted everything and shrugged it off like nothing.
“No, Mom,” I said quietly. “I have nothing more to say to you. I hope someday you wake up and feel the weight of what you did to me. Not because I want you to suffer, but because maybe that kind of pain would finally crack you open enough to change. Maybe then you’d become the kind of person who deserves better than Dad, Ben, or Bobby.
I don’t need to meet him to know he’s just another one of your collector’s items.”
My voice was trembling, but not from pain. Something else was blooming underneath. Something stronger.
“Because I found someone who really loves me. And it made me want to become better. For him. For me. Because I deserve it. He deserves it. And maybe, deep down, you do too.”
Another tear rolled down my cheek, but this one didn’t burn. It felt . . . clean. Like letting go.
Maybe I’d never know everything that had happened to me. Maybe I’d never make peace with all of it. But for once, the past didn’t feel bigger than my future.
“Well, ain’t that kind,” my mom said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Before I go, let me give you something for the road too.”
I braced myself.
“If you ever get married, marry someone rich. Filthy rich. Doesn’t matter how he looks.
Doesn’t matter what kind of temper he has or how old he is.
Doesn’t matter if you love him or not. Because when he turns out to be a piece of shit—and they always do—you can divorce him and still have the cash.
Cry in a five-star hotel in Italy, draped in Prada.
Give a hundred men one chance—not one man a hundred. ”
Click.
The line went dead.
I stared at the phone in my hand, then slowly placed it on the nightstand. The room around me felt quieter than before.
Mochi was playing with his mirror, babbling at his reflection. Thank God he hadn’t absorbed the tension, hadn’t started pacing or picking at himself.
I walked over to the mirror. My face was puffy from crying. I stared at my scar. Long and thick.
Still there.
But I was still here too.
And that had to mean something.
I’d found love. Real love. And I’d broken the cycle of abuse.
Even with Daniel’s dramatic explosion, awful and unacceptable as it was, he loved me.
Deeply. Treated me like a queen. Stood by me when anyone else would have walked away.
And the reason we even fought in the first place was for me.
He truly believed I was unwell in this place. He wanted to save me.
A huge weight slid off my shoulders.
I’d always thought losing my mind would be the worst thing in the world. Psychosis. Hallucinations. Being locked away.
But looking at my mother—how she lived, how she clung to her version of reality, the bitterness dripping off every word she spoke—nothing terrified me more than ending up like her.
Not even Cynthia in the basement scared me as much as that.
If I could just avoid becoming my mom, if I could truly pull myself in the other direction, maybe that was all my heart and mind needed to finally heal.
If this place really pushed me to the edge, then I had to face that part of myself too. Not bury it. Not deny it. Not lie the way my mother always did. I had to face my enemy, inside and out, domestic and foreign. And I had to become the woman Daniel deserved.
I’d get help, real help. Even if it meant checking into a psych ward for a while. Even if it meant taking antipsychotics for the rest of my life.
Something else snapped into place too. Mochi brought it into focus. The way he’d fluttered down onto my hand in the library, gentle and trusting. His eyes said it the only way they could: I wasn’t a monster. He loved me. He believed in me.
In that moment, I knew. The woman in the basement was probably real.
I should never have doubted myself.
I had to find Daniel, play the recording for him. Either a woman’s voice would be on it, or it wouldn’t, and I had to face whatever that meant. I had to accept whatever support I needed, make him see that he didn’t have to fear me. That I’d do the work. That I deserved the love we’d built.
But if she was real, we’d have to call the police again. Hudson would have to face the consequences of hiding a woman beneath someone else’s house. Voluntary or not, it was insane.
A violent gust of wind snapped at the window.
I stepped closer. The sky was nearly black, with clouds layered thick and low.
Rain hit the glass in sheets, sideways and sharp.
The ocean below thrashed, fighting the wind with every heave.
Waves cracked against the rocks. Some were already spilling over the narrow road that connected us to the mainland.
I’d never been afraid of storms. But this? Out here on a slab of rock surrounded by nothing but sea? This storm had teeth.
I stared into the chaos beyond the glass. Suddenly, it all felt too familiar, like I’d stood here before. Same storm. Same dread.
Then it hit me.
A flashback tore across my vision, fast and violent.
I was running through a storm just like this one. My bare feet—torn open and stinging—thudded against the soaked ground. Blood spilled through my fingers as I clutched my neck, trying to stop the bleeding. That nail. That rusted, jagged nail.
The memory vanished.
I stumbled back, my breath caught in my throat. The room around me snapped back into place.
My hand flew to the scar.
“It’s fine,” I whispered to Mochi, who nervously spread his wings. “Just a storm. We’ll be fine.”
But maybe the storm wasn’t the threat. Maybe the danger wasn’t outside. Maybe it was already here.
I had to talk to Daniel.
Right now.
Something was happening.
And it wasn’t good.