an adult, she did not have to reveal her location.
I refused to accept it.
In my mind, she had been manipulated. Taken. Turned against us.
After that night, Liam changed.
He stopped laughing. He locked his bedroom door whenever he was inside. If I knocked, he answered through the wood.
“Please, Mom. Just don’t come in.”
I thought it was grief.
So I respected it.
Around Christmas, John tried to say what I refused to hear.
“Camila, she was eighteen.”
I looked up from Livia’s empty stocking. “Don’t.”
“Maybe
