Chapter 19

The door to the room opens again, and a man I do not recognize comes to collect me. That man—Victor—said that we were waiting for our last guest, and all I can do now is believe that my love has arrived. He had toyed with my heart by telling me my mother and father are in the building, and after he left my room about three hours ago—a panicky guess—they were all I could think about. Somewhere in here, somewhere trapped in these same walls, my parents sit, alive. Once the first year had passed at grandmothers, I had given up waiting for them to come knocking on her door. Part of me always thought they had died somewhere and somehow and I would never discover why or how they did. It would be a mystery embedded in my mind for the rest of my life, one whose importance would die over time, but one that would always be there.

Again, my future has been flipped. It all st