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After Mother passed away, the last voice messages and videos on my phone were the only things keeping me alive. Then Tessa dropped it right in front of me. "Oops. I thought you'd catch it." She crushed the screen beneath her heel, then hid behind Graham with tears in her eyes. My brother barely reacted. "Good. Maybe now you'll stop clinging to those recordings." I fell to my knees, desperately gathering the broken pieces. Graham was the one who held me, whispering comfort. For a moment, I thought he finally cared. But the next day, I found myself restrained in the living room. The television kept replaying my worst nightmare. Tessa smiled as she forced my face toward the screen. "Graham went to a lot of trouble to get this footage." Graham? My heart nearly stopped. "Graham, you promised I'd never have to go through this again!" His voice remained gentle, utterly devoid of warmth. "Stop being difficult. It's for your own good." At last, I had no strength left to fight. Graham thought I'd finally learned to obey. What he didn't know was that I'd just begged him for help for the very last time. After my parents' bitter divorce battle ended in tragedy, I developed a severe trauma-related disorder. Graham Whitaker took me home. Patiently, little by little, he taught me how to speak again after the trauma had stolen my voice. "Lily's my little hand-fed bird," he used to say. "All she needs is to stay safe in the palm of my hand." I thought he'd saved me. I gave him everything I had. Then, one weekend, Graham drove me to Seabrook Beach. "Lily, I'm going to give you a romantic proposal. Just the two of us." I was so excited I thought I had to be the happiest woman alive. But as I stood there with my eyes closed, waiting, an entire bucket of thick red liquid came pouring down over my head. The next second, more than a dozen high-intensity lights shone directly at me. People crowded around me, laughing and taking pictures. My body locked up. I clutched my head and screamed.
