Chương 6
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
“Because it’s true.”
“No.”
My voice surprised me.
It sounded steadier than I felt.
“Because it’s easier to say you were worried about me than admit you wanted control.”
The hallway outside my apartment went silent.
I heard Rachel shift.
“She’s influencing you,” my father said.
I froze.
There it was.
The same idea.
The same pattern.
Whenever I questioned something, someone else had put the thought there.
The accident.
The doctors.
The medication.
The stress.
Now Daniel.
“You really believe that?”
“I believe you’re hurt.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
He didn’t answer.
Rachel finally spoke.
“Emma, can we please talk like adults?”
The anger that rose in me surprised even me.
“You mean without me asking questions?”
“That’s not fair.”
“Neither was signing paperwork I never saw.”
Silence.
A real silence.
Not an uncomfortable pause.
A silence where nobody had a good response.
I looked at the folder my father was holding through the peephole.
“How did you get that?”
No answer.
“Dad.”
He spoke quietly.
“You left it at the house.”
“I haven’t been to your house since yesterday.”
Rachel said something too low for me to hear.
My father responded.
“Not here.”
That caught my attention.
Not here.
Not now.
Not in front of me.
Something passed between them.
A look.
A decision.
Something they were not saying.
Daniel heard my breathing change.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
My father knocked again.
“Emma, please.”
I stepped away.
“I’m not opening the door.”
“Why?”
Because I needed to hear him say it.
Because I needed to know if he would admit something when he couldn’t see my face.
“Because every time I ask a question, someone tells me I’m the problem.”
Nothing came back immediately.
Then my father said something I had not expected.
“I was trying to protect you.”
The sentence made my skin go cold.
“From what?”
No answer.
“From what, Dad?”
Rachel whispered something.
My father interrupted her.
“Not here.”
Again.
Not here.
A few seconds later, I heard their footsteps moving away.
I stayed there until the elevator doors closed.
Only then did I realize I had been holding my breath.
Daniel spoke.
“Are you okay?”
“No.”
It was the first honest answer I had given all morning.
“I’m not okay.”
“I know.”
I sat down against the wall.
The floor was cold through my sweatpants.
“I hate that part of me still wants him to be innocent.”
Daniel was quiet.
“That part of you isn’t stupid.”
“It feels stupid.”
“No.”
His voice was firm.
“It means he was your dad before he was someone who hurt you.”
I looked at the closed door.
I wanted that to be enough.
I wanted love and anger to cancel each other out.
But they didn’t.
They just existed together.
An hour later, Daniel came back.
He brought coffee.
Not because coffee fixed anything.
Because he remembered I hated dealing with serious conversations without one.
That small thing almost made me cry.
We sat at my kitchen table with the documents spread between us.
Daniel had printed copies of the authorization form and the notes from the party.
He had also brought the tablet.
“I called Noah’s pediatrician.”
I looked up.
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to know if Rachel had ever tried to add herself to any of Noah’s records.”
I frowned.
“And?”
“She did.”
My stomach tightened.
“Is that normal?”
“Not without a reason.”
He rubbed his face.
“She listed herself as someone who needed access because she was helping manage family responsibilities.”
“Family responsibilities.”
The phrase sounded familiar.
Too familiar.
Daniel tapped the table.
“There’s something I need to tell you.”
I waited.
“When you were in the hospital, Dad called me.”
“When?”
“The night before your surgery.”
I stared at him.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t know this was connected.”
The honesty helped.
A little.
“What did he say?”
Daniel looked uncomfortable.
“He said you were scared and emotional.”
I looked down.
“I was.”
“Yes.”
He didn’t soften the truth.
That mattered.
“But he also said you might make decisions you would regret.”
My fingers curled around my coffee cup.
“What decisions?”
“He didn’t say.”
The answer bothered me.
Because it meant there had been a conversation about me when I wasn’t there.
A conversation where everyone had a voice except me.
Daniel opened his phone.
“There’s one more thing.”
He showed me a message.
A text from my father.
Sent four months ago.
The day after my surgery.
It was to Daniel.
The message was short.
“She can’t know about the financial issue yet.”
I read it twice.
“What financial issue?”
Daniel looked at me.
“I don’t know.”
A cold feeling moved through me.
Not because we had an answer.
Because we finally had a question neither of us could ignore.
Outside my window, someone was mowing their lawn.
A neighbor laughed somewhere downstairs.
A delivery truck stopped at the curb.
The world kept moving like nothing had happened.
Daniel locked his phone.
“We need to find out what that means.”
I looked at the papers covering my table.
The medical form.
The notes.
The message.
Pieces of a story everyone else seemed to know except me.
Then my phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
One message.
I almost ignored it.
Almost.
But something made me open it.
There was only a photograph attached.
A picture of a document.
The sender had highlighted one sentence.
My name was written beside it.
And underneath was a note.
“Your father is not the only person who signed something without telling you.”
I stared at the message until the screen dimmed.
The photograph showed a document I had never seen before.
The quality was poor, taken at an angle, but the words were clear enough.
My name.
My address.
A signature line.
And below it, a sentence highlighted in yellow.
“Authorized representative may make financial decisions related to recovery expenses.”
My hands went cold.
“Emma?”
May you like
Daniel leaned closer.
“What is it?”
