The silence in my office was suffocating. Raven’s voice kept echoing. Her words weren’t loud—but they carried weight, heavier than anything I’d ever known.
What if everything I believed was a lie?
I slammed my fist against the wall, the pain grounding me for a moment. But even that couldn’t drown out the doubt.
Could she be telling the truth?
I hated this feeling. The uncertainty. The instability. The possibility that I had misjudged the very foundation of my pain—my family’s death. That I had condemned her mother when maybe she was just a victim too.
But how could I believe her? How could I even allow myself to entertain the idea?
No. No.
She was found with the bottle. She was scared. She was crying. I saw it all myself. But… people cry when they’re scared, not always because they’
