In school photos, everyone is supposed to look happy, yet the smiles in these pictures feel forced, the cheer stretched thin over something far darker. The brightness of the plastic grins presses against me, almost overwhelming in its intensity.
Especially William.
He radiates kindness in the pictures, like a man who would help a woman carry her bags, assist an elderly lady across the street even in a rush, or buy a child candy when their parents said no. But beneath it all, a faint glimmer slips through, revealing a side of him he keeps tightly locked away.
I glance at Bennett, now hunched over a renewed glass, downing it with the same urgency as before. He might not have fully known his brother, or perhaps he did and feared what others might see. That fear, that flicker, explains the glint in his eyes when Estella’s name first came up.
“He saw good in her,” he whispers, his voice heavy with a blend of disbelief and sorrow. “She was aggressive, impulsive, violent, and had a mouth like a storm. She didn’t care what anyone thought,” he continues. “No teacher could make even the slightest remark—she’d bite them before they even finished talking.”
I turn the pages until I reach the photos that include her. The images hold me fast, my stomach knotting as the tension winds itself tightly around each page. A smirk rises at the edge of my lips, but I force it back. She still carries fragments of it—her unapologetic mouth, her dark, impossibly sharp sense of humor.
My fingertips linger on the first picture, where she stands near William, hands tucked behind her back. The image is marred by burn marks, but I don’t need clarity to feel her presence. Her hair is loose and dark, falling around her pale, slightly skinnier frame. Her face looks back at me, half-hidden beneath the scorch marks, and the weight of the raw symbolism presses against me.
I flip the page. Another photograph shows her with William, standing closer this time. The worry bites at me, sharp along its edges, though it has not yet grown into a full bloom.
“Her face was rarely clean,” Bennett mutters, reading my furrowed brows as I trace the dark splotches—bruises, faint and deep, a tapestry of purples, reds, and pinks. “She always got into fights. Didn’t teach her a thing. She kept being rude, always trying to prove something to everyone.”
“Do you remember anything about her family?” I probe carefully, leaning into the shadows of his hesitation.
“Of course,” he says slowly. “Everybody loved her parents. They were good people. Her father invested a lot in the community.”
Yeah. That explains the love everyone feels for them, the thin mask of perfection.
“I don’t knowwhyshe turned out the way she did,” he says, voice drifting, lost in thought. “Such a broken, violent child.”
“Where do you think she got her bruises from?” I press. “School?”
“A couple of times she fought other kids,” he admits, “but once they saw what she could do, they backed off. She was always separated. Everyone was afraid of her.”
A sharp, burning pain loops around my chest, tightening with every heartbeat. “What about her family, then? Were they doing this to her?”
“No, no, they were good people,” he says quickly.
Then his eyes meet mine, and I catch the lie, my lips pressing into a thin, tight line. He meets my gaze with nothing more than a casual shrug.
“I… I don’t know. I never paid much attention. I mean—” His head shakes, slow and confused. “I’m sure she acted like that at home too. Maybe they tried to teach her a lesson.”
For a man who built his life on studying the human mind, he’s fucking terrible at it.
Fury tears through me, hot and electric. My jaw clenches, teeth biting down, and I press the album pages so tightly my fingers turn white. I close my eyes, trying to expel the sickening truth.
I don’t need to be a genius to see what everyone else pretended not to. He knew. Everyone knew. Her parents abused her regularly, silently, and nobody intervened. Instead, they pushed her away, punished her violence without questioning why.
My heart bleeds for her. I know it can never truly honor all that she has endured, yet perhaps, she will sense that I share in her pain, that I understand the depths of what she has lived through.
“This is where William started appearing,” I murmur under my breath, eyes scanning the new batch of pictures. Each image shows him inching closer to her, the space between them shrinking with every flip of the page. My teeth press into my tongue to stop the thoughts that claw at the surface.
The photos shift to scenes outside school. The first shows them in a park, autumn’s yellow-brown leaves carpeting the ground around the bench where they sit, steaming cups warming their hands. Estella’s smile is radiant, bright as weak sunlight breaking through clouds, and it ignites a storm inside me, all mingling into a bitter swirl.
A storm of jealousy.
Worry.
Anger.
“Who took these?” I finally ask, tension slipping through my voice despite my efforts. I scrub my free hand across my face as if I could wipe away the ugly expression twisting me.
“Some are selfies. Some were taken by me and his daughter,” he answers.
