Chapter 1
My mother's hand stung across my face before I could even blink.
I'd pushed open the bedroom door without knocking. That was all it took.
The sound of the slap echoed off the walls. My cheek burned. Hot tears spilled down my face before I could stop them.
"How many times have I told you?" she hissed, her eyes narrow and cold. "You knock. Always."
I couldn't speak. The pain in my cheek mixed with the hurt in my chest. I was eleven years old. I just wanted to ask her about my math homework.
"Get out," she said, turning away like I was nothing more than a mess she'd stepped in.
Something in me snapped.
I'd taken her anger my whole life. The slaps. The cold words. The way she looked at me like I was a mistake. But today, today was different.
I saw the expensive sofa cover first. The one she'd screamed at my father for buying. The one she said cost more than I was worth.
I ran to it. Grabbed it with both fists. And threw it with every bit of strength I had.
It flew through the air. Landed on the floor in a heap.
And then the sofa itself moved.
Not much. Just a slight shift. A creak of wood.
I froze. My tears stopped mid-fall.
A panel in the base of the sofa slid open.
And a man crawled out.
He was on his hands and knees, awkward and cramped, like he'd been folded into that tiny space for hours. His clothes were rumpled. His hair was a mess. He looked up, and his eyes went wide when he saw me.
The room went completely silent.
I pointed at him. My finger shook.
My father appeared in the doorway then.
I hadn't even heard him come in.
He stood there, his face pale. His hands trembled at his sides. Tears streamed down his cheeks, but he didn't make a sound.
He looked at the stranger.
Then he looked at my mother.
"It doesn't fix anything," he said, his voice breaking. "It stays here every time you leave town."
My mother didn't answer.
She was staring at the man on the floor.
Her face drained of color. All the anger, all the coldness, all the cruelty vanished. In its place was something I'd never seen on her before.
Fear.
The stranger didn't move. He was trapped between my father's gaze and my mother's shock.
And then the whole room seemed to freeze.
Time stopped.
The only sound was my own ragged breathing.
I looked from my father's broken face to my mother's terrified one, to the stranger who'd been hiding under our sofa.
May you like
And in that moment, I knew.
Everything I thought I knew about my family was a lie.
