The room is so quiet I can hear my own heart breaking.
But somewhere, in the part of me that’s still alive, I want to know everything.
I want to know who I was. Who I am.
I look at the photo, then at him, and I know this is just the beginning.
I don’t remember standingup, but now I’m pacing the length of the study, tripping over the Persian rug, hands buried in myhair. The world is upside-down: every time I look at a photo, it’s like a punch to the stomach, my face staring back at me from a life I don’t remember. I am sobbing but also laughing, this bitter, cracked thing. I swipe a stack of paper off the desk and watch it flutter to the floor, then press my fists to my eyes so hard the world goes black and stars.
The headache is a red knife. My heart jackhammers. I want to run, to claw through the walls, to shatter every frame in the room and then crawl inside the empty space.
“Daisy—” Hunter’s voice, behind me, too gentle. “Tara?—”
“Don’t call me that,” I shriek. My throat is raw, voice ripped from the inside out. “Don’t. You don’t get to.”
He holds up both hands, as if I’m a bomb about to go off. Maybe I am.
“Please,” he says. “Just let me explain.”
I whirl, fists clenched. “Explain what, Hunter? That I’m your stepsister? That you’ve been fucking me for weeks and never once told me?” The words are a shriek, echoing in the glass and the steel. I want to hurt him, to make him bleed the way I am.
He flinches. “We haven’t?—”
“No? What do you call it, then? What is this?” I rip open the neck of my shirt, exposing the hickeys on my collarbone, the faint marks of his teeth on my shoulder. “Is this normal for step-siblings? Is this what families do?”
His face goes pale. “It’s not— I never?—”
I pace again, bare feet slapping the floor. My body is a live wire, buzzing with grief and rage and something I don’t want to name.
Memories crash into me, sharp and fast, like a dozen TVs all blaring at once. I see the blue bowl, the yellow kitchen, the man with the cartoon cat mug. I see my own face, younger, furious, screaming. Then another flash: a party, plastic cups everywhere, someone’s hands on my waist, a male voice in my ear. “That’s it. There you go.” Then water, cold and endless, and the sound of sirens, the sharp stink of burning metal and blood.
I grab the edge of the shelf and double over, gasping.
“Breathe,” Hunter says, coming closer. “Just breathe, Daisy—Tara—fuck, I don’t care what you want me to call you, just don’t do this, don’t?—”
“Don’t what?” I gasp, air coming in ragged, ugly bursts. “Don’t lose my mind? Don’t remember?”
He’s there, arms half-extended, desperate to touch but afraid to.
I choke on my own spit, tears streaming. “Tell me. Tell me what happened to me.”
He swallows, then perches on the edge of the desk, hands flat, eyes fixed on the floor.
“You were in a car accident,” he says. “You were talking on the phone while driving, and lost control of the car.” He stops, throat working. “You hit the bridge on 35. They pulled you out and you were—” His voice breaks. “You didn’t know your name. You didn’t know anything.”
He looks at me, and I see real fear there, as if he’s afraid I’ll disappear right in front of him.
“But then you wandered off, and we couldn’t find you. They said you likely wandered the city for hours, stumbling and dazed. They said it was dissociative fugue. Trauma-induced. I cameupon you late that night, and you called yourself Daisy. When you were Tara, you worked at a cafe called the Daisy Cafe. I think you got your new name from your old employer.”
I stare at him, trembling.
“What else?”
“You know what happens then. I took you to the hospital, but you balked. Then, I decided to take you to Sanctum so that you could rest. I told our family that you were fine. That you were just exhausted from working too hard, and needed a break. I told them that you were staying with me in the meantime, and that you were safe.”
The world tilts again, but some things start to click. I remember rain, and a scream, and a dark so deep it swallowed me whole.
I want to collapse, but my body won’t let me. Instead, I slide down the wall, knees to my chest, and cry into the crook of my arm.
