Chapter 2
For years, I believed monsters looked different from everyone else.
Then I grew up in a house where the monster wore cufflinks.
My father’s face appeared on billboards across East Tennessee every spring: GRANT CARTER AUTO GROUP—WHERE FAMILY STILL MATTERS. He sponsored Little League teams, donated trucks to police charity auctions, and stood in the front row at First Baptist with his hand over his heart during every hymn.
My mother chaired school fundraisers and delivered casseroles when neighbors got sick. She had a voice like honey in public and broken glass behind closed doors. At church, she placed a hand on my shoulder when people complimented my grades. At home, that same hand slapped me for leaving water spots on the bathroom mirror.
People loved my parents.
That was the prison around the prison.
Who would believe me?
Who would believe that Grant Carter, local businessman, father, donor, and smiling man of God, once locked me in the laundry room overnight because I dropped a cereal bowl? Who would believe that Denise Carter, with her pearls and soft Southern vowels, watched him do it and turned up the television because my crying “ruined the mood”?
So I learned to disappear.
I learned which floorboards creaked. I learned to swallow coughs. I learned to cry into towels. I learned to read my father’s mood by how he set down his keys. Metal tossed onto the counter meant annoyance. Metal placed quietly meant danger.
Breathing was harder to control.
When I was thirteen, I had a cold. I sniffled through dinner. Dad told me the sound made him want to drive into a tree. Mom laughed and said at least the insurance money would be useful. That night, he made me sit outside on the back porch in December until I could “breathe like a civilized person.”
I never told anyone.
The one time I tried, I was nine.
My fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Alvarez, noticed bruises on my arm and asked if everything was okay at home. I cried before I could stop myself. By three o’clock, a school counselor had called my mother. By five, Mom was smiling in the counselor’s office, explaining that I was “sensitive” and “dramatic” and had fallen during gymnastics.
I had never taken gymnastics.
They believed her.
That night, Dad sat on the edge of my bed and said, “The next time you lie about this family, I’ll give you a reason to cry.”
After that, I became an excellent liar.
“I’m fine.”
“I fell.”
“I’m tired.”
“No, really, I’m fine.”
But lies rot inside you. They turn into something heavy. By the time I was seventeen, I carried so many secrets I felt older than the adults around me.
Then came the broken wrist.
It happened in April, during finals week. I was writing an essay for AP English at the kitchen table because Dad said bedrooms were for sleeping, not “pretending to study.” My fingers moved fast over the keyboard. He was watching a baseball game in the living room.
“Stop hammering those keys,” he called.
I stopped.
A few minutes later, I started again, slower.
He appeared behind me so quietly I didn’t hear him. He grabbed my right hand and bent it backward until pain shot up my arm. I screamed once. He hated screams.
The snap was small.
Almost polite.
Mom came in holding a wineglass and sighed.
“Now she’ll milk this for weeks.”
At the emergency room, Dad told the doctor I had slipped on the back steps. Mom dabbed at her eyes and said teenagers never listened. The doctor looked at me for a long time. His name was Dr. Nathan Bell. He asked if I felt safe at home.
Dad answered for me.
“Of course she does.”
The doctor’s eyes stayed on mine.
I wanted to scream the truth.
But Dad’s hand rested on my shoulder, heavy as a threat.
So I nodded.
That night, while they slept, I practiced calling 911 without actually dialing. Again and again. My thumb hovering. My breath shaking.
Next time, I told myself.
Next time I would not be alone with the truth.
And then the next time came in Benton’s Market parking lot.
Lying on the asphalt, I heard the operator’s voice through the tiny speaker near my palm.
“Ma’am? Can you hear me? Stay on the line. Help is on the way.”
Dad crouched beside me. “Emily?”
I let my body go limp.
Playing dead wasn’t hard. The pain kept pulling me into darkness anyway. I just stopped fighting it visibly.
“Grant,” Mom said, panic finally entering her voice. “She’s not moving.”
“Shut up.”
“What if someone saw?”
“I said shut up.”
A woman’s voice cut through the parking lot.
“Sir? Is that girl okay?”
Dad turned. “Mind your business.”
“She’s bleeding.”
“She fell.”
“She didn’t fall,” the woman said. “I saw you.”
Silence.
Even through the ringing in my ears, I felt the change. Dad’s fear moved through the air like a cold front.
The woman continued, louder now. “I’m calling the police.”
Mom gave a strangled little laugh. “No need. Our daughter is very dramatic. She does this.”
Does this.
As if I had chosen to bleed on asphalt for attention.
Then the first siren wailed.
Dad saw the phone under my hand.
His face changed completely.
For the first time in my life, my father looked afraid of me.
“You,” he whispered. “You called them.”
The siren grew louder.
The parking lot lights blurred above me. Somewhere nearby, a cart rolled loose and clattered against a curb. My mother’s broken bottle glittered beside my cheek.
And for the first time, I understood something that felt like freedom.
May you like
They could still hurt me.
But they could no longer control the story.
