My heart ached. I stepped forward again. "He still loves you. You’re his daughter.""He looks at me like a duty. He looks at you like salvation."She turned away for a moment, arms crossed. Her breath was ragged. When she turned back around, her face was hard again, but I could see the cracks beneat
I found her in the garden.The morning light filtered through the trees in gentle patches, breaking apart over the stone path and scattering gold across the grass. Jenny sat on the edge of the fountain like she had nowhere else to go. She clutched the journal against her chest like it was a weapon a
But logic did nothing to calm the twisting in my gut. I felt exposed. Violated. Like she had peeled away every layer I’d so carefully built. I wrapped my arms around myself, biting the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood. My vision blurred. I didn’t want to cry. Not here, not in front of them."
The room felt like it was holding its breath. A low hum came from the monitor as the security footage played for the fifth time, the blue-tinged screen flickering like it wanted to hide what we already knew. Jenny. Slipping into my room with her familiar practiced grace, her face tight with intentio
“Do we have any idea who could have taken it?” Richard asked.Nathan shook his head. “Not yet. We’re reviewing surveillance from the apartment complex. But whoever it was knew exactly what they were after.”Emma leaned forward, her voice clipped. “It’s more than a security breach. It’s emotional bla
I knew something was wrong the moment I reached for my journal and it wasn’t there. It had been under my pillow for weeks, tucked away like some adolescent secret, always close enough that I could reach for it when the words built too high in my throat. That journal wasn’t just a collection of entri