Kaylee’s voice was the only warm thing in that camper, shaking as she wrapped the blankets tighter and begged me not to call the sheriff yet, not to drag her back into that house where her bed had become a weight bench and her posters had been replaced by Tara’s progress charts. She wanted witnesses, she said—people who loved her more than they feared Tara’s temper—and as I drove us back to town, her fingers locked white around that baby monitor like a life raft. I watched the porch light swell in the windshield, thinking of candles and frosting and the way Tara’s smile never reached her eyes anymore, and every mile closer to the party felt like walking a tightrope over a pit I hadn’t even known existed until I saw my daughter’s breath hanging in the air like a silent, unanswered ple… Continues…
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