Chapter 6

I was twelve when my mom took me away from my grandma's house in that small town.

That day, her voice was manic, almost deranged. "My good girl, now you can finally help Mom get revenge.

"Let those bitches see who the real genius is. Her daughter plays piano? So what?"

After that day, I never saw my grandma again.

My mom said that if I won first place in the school violin competition, she'd let me visit my grandma.

But when I finally did, she moved the goalposts again, saying I had to win first place in the city competition next.

It wasn't until I was nineteen that I finally won the National Gold Award.

But my grandma passed away the morning I received the award.

She knew I would visit her once I won, so she kept holding on, waiting for me. She managed to hang on until the day I won, but in the end, she couldn't make it to see me.

After seven years of longing for her, all I could do was hold a handful of her ashes.

After that, it was like my heart went numb.

I didn't know how to love others anymore. I also didn't quite know how to express affection or liking.

I had a big blow-up with my mom.

She called me ungrateful and packed me off to my dad's place, tossing me straight into another hell.

That night, my dad, reeking of booze, barged into my bedroom. But instead of my name, he kept shouting for Olivia.

My whole world fell apart.

At the last second, I grabbed a lamp and smashed it hard against my dad's head. He was jolted back to consciousness, barely.

By the time my mom rushed in, I was curled up, hugging myself tightly.

Olivia and her mom stood in the bedroom, looking guilt-ridden and panicked.

I never imagined something this twisted could actually happen in real life.

Olivia's mom stole my dad years ago. As she got older and saw my dad with a new lover, she got scared she'd be kicked out. So she pushed her own daughter to seduce him.

I sat on the bed for a long, long time, desperately dry-heaving.

My mom smashed everything in the bedroom and tore into Olivia and her mom with every insult she could think of.

Not a word was aimed at my dad.

Not a single word stood up for me.

The whole place was a disaster, like the world was ending.

But in the end, everyone wanted me to sweep it under the rug.

But I wasn't having it.

I had a camera set up in my bedroom to record my violin practice and send the videos to my teacher.

But thanks to some messed-up twist of fate, it ended up catching something dirty.

I took the video to the police station.

But after the cop watched the video, his expression was very strange.

He tried to convince me. "Nothing actually happened. You're still young. The young lady does care about her reputation. Why not drop it?"

I didn't understand. I was not the one who did something wrong, so why should I be afraid of losing my reputation?

When the police refused to help, I posted the video online and contacted the media.

The internet exploded. Millions of people now knew my face, the face of a nineteen-year-old girl.

Some people pitied me, but more treated it like entertainment, waiting for the next juicy update.

The online backlash wouldn't die down.

My dad lost his job and got thrown in jail for three months.

My mom went crazy. Her face twisted with rage as she yanked at my hair.

She was crying and screaming at me. "How shameless can you be? Do you know what shame is? Do you have any dignity at all?"

I let her scream and hit me, feeling lost.

It felt like I'd not only lost the ability to love, but was also losing any awareness of dignity or shame.

All that remained in me was a cold, icy rationality. Numbly, I weighed what I should do next.

My mother screamed at me, her voice hoarse and exhausted from shouting, "Do you have a heart?"

Like that day, years later, when I broke up with James, he looked at me, utterly devastated, and demanded, "Emily, do you have a heart?"