Page 45 of The Obedient Lie
She didn’t look at us. Not once.
Not when she dropped her phone on the nightstand. Not when she slipped out of her jeans and into that bland cotton sleep shirt. Not when she pulled the blanket up like she was afraid she’d ruin it.
And maybe shewas.
Because she’d been gone—not physically, not officially—but everything that made herherhad been stripped clean from this space.
No smell of rosewood shampoo.
No perfume in the air.
No raspberry cookies cooling by the window.
No lace things folded in the drawer she used to pretend we didn’t notice.
Just silence.
And I fuckinghatedit.
Worse?
I caused it.
That damn curfew—the reason she had to check in every night, sleep here, breathe the same air as us again?
Me.
I pulled the right strings, whispered to the right person, offered the right compromise to make it happen.
All to get her back under our roof.
Back in this room.
Back in our orbit.
I told myself it was for control. For order. For the family’s image.
But the truth?
It wasfor me.
I wanted her back.
And I didn’t care how.
And now?
She was here.
But she wasn’there.
She hadn’t spoken to me in three weeks. Hadn’t evenlookedat me. Not after what I said that day?—
tearing into her with every bitter word I’d buried for weeks.
About the kiss.
The room.
