Today, my mom finally called me—for the first time since the attack. The deep scar on my thigh has stopped aching, and I can shower again. The people close to me have stopped bringing it up altogether. My stepfather was beside her, though he stayed off camera.
To be honest, I think this wealthy stepfather—my dad’s best friend when he was alive—cares more about me than my own mother ever did. In our twenty-five-minute call, he spent a full three minutes asking about my injuries in the same thorough, clinical tone as my attending physician, and twice brought up the idea of hiring someone “trustworthy” to live with me as a companion. I couldn’t detect a trace of insincerity in his voice, even when I scrutinized it with the harshest lens I had. He sounded like someone who genuinely gave a damn.
But both of my mom’s marriages have the same kind of hard-to-ignore red flags as Rafe and Otto. And then there’s that one thing—that slap-to-the-skull revelation she once gave me like it was nothing. Because of that, I can’t trust either of them.
Of course, I’ve had plenty of practice performing for these people.
“You don’t need to worry about me,” I told them, smiling. “It was just a freak accident. Statistically, something like that won’t happen again. Besides, the officer handling my case has been really attentive—she even gave me her personal contact info. If I’m ever in danger, I’ll reach out to her immediately.”
“Uncle Lu, cops are way more reliable than college kids when it comes to personal safety, right?”
The factory director—who’s never once raised his voice at me, and who lets my mom throw obscene amounts of money my way without ever expecting me to call him Dad—reluctantly accepted my excuse. Then came the standard closing ritual: he transferred a hefty sum of money into my account, like always, with zero room for refusal.
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I stopped believing in “I don’t want your money, I just want your love” years ago. Money is great. But accepting it with no clear strings attached makes me uneasy—like one day, I’ll be forced to pay it back in some horrifying way I can’t even imagine yet.
Still, I have a gut feeling: if I ever go off-script and try to uncover what’s really going on, it’ll drag both me and my mom into something far more dangerous than we’re ready to face.
So I put on my usual performance, smiling wide as I thanked Uncle Lu, saying things like “I’m so glad to see you and Mom doing well together—it really puts me at ease.” After the show ended, I walked into the kitchen to find something to eat, and of course, that same question crawled its way back into my thoughts.
I’ve asked myself a thousand times—ten thousand, maybe—and still have no answer:
What exactly does this man want—from me, or from my mother?
Otto came bounding in from the yard, tail wagging, proudly displaying a stick he’d found at the park. Rafe unhooked his leash and hung it on the rack, casually chatting with me like nothing was off.
And in that moment, I thought—I’d give anything, even my life, just to feel like I was living in something real.
Oh, and those “silly little experiments” I mentioned?
They worked. Better than I expected. Not only did they prove I’m not paranoid, but they gave me just enough courage to face whatever the hell this fa?ade is hiding.
