27

AVA POV:

couldn’t stop throwing up.

I heaved into the toilet, my stomach roiling, my skin drenched with sweat as Alex held my hair back and rubbed circles on my back.

He was livid. Not at me, but at my father, my past, the entire situation. I could feel it in the tenseness of his hands and the aura of barely leashed violence that’d swirled around him since I confessed my memories.

The day at the lake had only been the tip of the iceberg.

I’d remembered something else—something that cemented my father’s guilt.

“Daddy, look!” I ran into his office, brandishing the paper in my hands with pride. It was an essay I wrote for class on who we admired most. I wrote about Daddy. Mrs. James gave me an A plus on it, and I couldn’t wait to show him.

“What is it, Ava?” He raised his eyebrows.

“I got an A plus! Look!”

He took the paper from me and skimmed it, but he didn’t look happy like I’d expected.

My smile dimmed. Why was he frowning? Weren’t A’s good? He alw