Damian
It was like drowning in air.
Nine months of silence.
Not because I wanted it.
But because I had no other choice.
My father made good on every threat.
No phone.
No outside email.
No unsupervised contact.
If I wanted to use the internet, it was monitored.
If I left the estate, someone followed.
If I tried to sneak out, the gates wouldn’t open. Not without a passcode only he had.
It wasn’t just distance. It was imprisonment.
And yet… every night, I wrote Ivy a message in my head.
Sometimes I whispered it into the darkness.
Sometimes I wrote it on paper and burned it.
Ivy. Lila.
My entire world reduced to memories and ghosts.
The board kept its distance.
My father didn’t.
Madeleine played her part flawlessly.
She didn’t ask why I slept on the opposite side of the es
