Chapter 2: The Name on the Screen
My dad held the receipt out toward Tara without saying a word.
She stared at it.
Her mouth opened, then closed.
"That doesn't prove anything," she finally said.
"She could have written that herself."
I felt the air leave my lungs.
My dad's voice dropped low.
"Tara.
That's your handwriting."
She snatched the receipt from his hand and shoved it into her pocket.
"This conversation is over."
But my dad didn't move.
He stood in the doorway of my ransacked bedroom — dresser drawers still hanging open, my backpack dumped on the floor — and looked at her like he was seeing something for the first time.
"How many other times?" he said quietly.
Tara's eyes flicked to me.
Something in them shifted.
Not guilt.
Something colder.
"You're really going to take her side?" she said.
"After everything I've done for this family?"
Then her phone buzzed on the nightstand.
She grabbed it fast — too fast — and turned the screen away.
My dad noticed.
So did I.
And the name on that screen was not one either of us expected to see.
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What that name revealed tore my family apart in ways Tara never saw coming.
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