38

Camila

The papers are spread across my bed like I’m planning to make a thousand paper flowers for a wedding. They cover the blanket so thickly you can hardly see it between the gaps. Stalking around the mattress, I write hastily on the back of a scrap piece I’ve folded in half.

My notes must make me seem insane. No one could decipher my scribbles, which have been made in increasingly frantic lines. But I need to write to keep track, and also … to believe that what I’m seeing is true.

This can’t be real. It just can’t!

Staring in between my writing and the documents, I finally sink onto the floor in a heap. There’s no denying it. I’ve gone over everything a hundred times—it’s nearly dawn. After the high- octane escape out of the mansion and back again, I’m awake from pure adrenaline.

What I’ve learned is going to change everything.

Mom ... is this what you didn’t want me to know?

The major trail of income into the dance studio points in one direction. For years, my father accepted mone