Her mother shut off the tap. Slowly, she dried her hands, buying time. "You were young. You fell. You got hurt. That's all you need to know."
Claire felt something snap.
"My dad isn't dead, is he?"
The words hung in the air like broken glass.
Her mother froze completely.
Claire's heart pounded. "Randy didn't deny it. Neither did his father. And every time I ask about my childhood, everyone goes quiet." Her voice trembled, but she didn't stop. "If you don't tell me now, I'll find out on my own."
Her mother turned, eyes shining with panic. "Claire, please—"
"He's in jail," Claire said. "Isn't he?"
Silence.
Then—her mother sank into the chair, as if her legs could no longer hold her.
Tears welled up instantly.
"Oh God," she whispered. "I wanted to protect you."
Claire swallowed hard, walking closer. "Protect me from what?"
Her mother covered her face, shoulders shaking. When she finally spoke, her voice was raw.
"Your father wasn't a good man."
Claire's chest tightened.
"He hurt me," her mother continued, barely audible. "For years. I told myself it would stop. I told myself I could endure it—for you."
Claire felt dizzy. "Mom…"
"And then," her mother said, lifting her tear-filled eyes, "he turned his anger on you."
The room seemed to tilt.
"What do you mean?" Claire asked, her voice breaking.
Her mother's hands trembled. "He touched you, Claire. He threatened you. You were too young to understand what was happening—but I saw the fear in your eyes. That was the night I decided to run."
Claire's ears rang. Her stomach twisted violently.
"So the accident…" she whispered.
"I packed what I could," her mother said, tears streaming now. "I put you in the car in the middle of the night. I didn't even go back inside. I just wanted to get as far away from him as possible."
Her mother's breathing grew uneven.
"He followed us," she said. "I didn't know at first. Then I saw his headlights. He was drunk. Furious." Her voice cracked. "He rammed into us, Claire. Over and over. He wanted to stop us. He wanted to punish me."
Claire's knees buckled. She grabbed the edge of the table to stay upright.
"The car spun," her mother went on, sobbing now. "We hit the divider. I remember screaming your name. You were bleeding. You wouldn't wake up."
Claire's vision blurred.
"You were in a coma for a week," her mother whispered. "The doctors said you might never open your eyes. And when you did… you didn't remember him. Or the house. Or what he did."
Claire pressed her hands to her mouth, a scream trapped behind her ribs.
"So you erased him," she said hoarsely.
"I let you believe he was dead," her mother admitted. "Because to me, he was. He went to prison. And I swore—I swore—he would never reach you again."
Claire shook her head, memories crashing in fragments—darkness, fear, a man's shadow, her mother crying.
"That's why my mind feels empty," she murmured. "Because it locked him away."
Her mother nodded, crawling toward her, gripping her hands desperately. "I was afraid that if you remembered, it would break you all over again."
Claire stared at her, tears sliding silently down her cheeks.
"But what if someone else knows?" she asked quietly. "What if someone's been watching me this whole time?"
Her mother's face drained of color.
"Who?" she whispered.
Claire thought of Mr. Walker's calm smile.
Of Randy's silence.
Of the photo that proved her past had never truly disappeared.
"I don't know yet," Claire said. "But they've known longer than I have."
Fear flickered in her mother's eyes.
And in that moment, Claire understood something terrifying:
Her childhood hadn't just been stolen.
It had been buried—
and someone out there knew exactly where it was buried, and was waiting for it to resurface.
Claire locked herself in her room that night.
The walls felt too close, the air too heavy—as if the truth had seeped into every corner. She sat on the floor with her back against the bed, knees pulled to her chest, staring at nothing.
So this was my life.
A childhood stolen.
Memories erased.
A past rewritten to keep her breathing.
Her mind drifted, unbidden, to another version of herself—the one she sometimes dreamed about.
The girl who had died.
In that other life, the pain had been sharp but simple. A betrayal. A knife. Blood blooming red against white tiles. She remembered the moment vividly: the shock, the disbelief, the way her friend's eyes had looked empty as the blade went in.
Then darkness.
And then—rebirth.
A second chance. A clean slate. A life where she believed suffering had started there, as if pain had only just entered her story.
Claire laughed weakly, pressing her forehead to her knees.
"How stupid," she whispered.
She had thought that life had been cruel once.
But the truth was far worse.
This life—this real life—had been poisoning her long before the knife, long before the rebirth she clung to as an explanation for her strength.
She hadn't been reborn to escape pain.
She had been reborn into it.
Images crowded her thoughts—her younger self flinching at loud voices, the instinctive fear of men standing too close, the way her body tensed without knowing why. The nightmares that never had faces. The panic attacks she'd always blamed on stress.
It hadn't been random.
It had been memory without memory.
Tears streamed silently down her face.
"All this time," she murmured, voice shaking, "I thought I was weak because I couldn't remember."
But maybe forgetting had been the only way she survived.
Her phone buzzed beside her.
Randy.
She didn't pick it up.
She couldn't.
Because suddenly, everything he'd said—You weren't the same. The doctors said it was trauma. I can't tell you yet—felt heavier. Calculated. Controlled.
How much did he know?
And how long had he known?
Claire rolled onto her side, staring at the dark ceiling.
In the other life, the enemy had been clear. A friend who turned into a murderer. A single moment of betrayal.
In this one?
The enemy had worn the face of a father.
The silence of a mother.
The protection of powerful families.
And smiles that hid secrets.
She hugged herself tightly.
"Was I ever given a choice?" she whispered.
The realization hit her slowly, then all at once—
Her rebirth hadn't erased her suffering.
It had delayed it.
Someone had pressed pause on her pain, locked it away in her mind, and let her grow up believing she was normal, whole, safe.
Until now.
Until the past decided it wanted her back.
Claire closed her eyes, breathing through the ache in her chest.
If she had survived that childhood…
If she had lived through abuse, betrayal, silence, and forgetting…
Then whoever thought she would break now—
was gravely mistaken.
Her life had been bad.
Unfair.
Cruel beyond measure.
But she was still here.
And this time, she would remember.
This time, she would choose.
And this time—
no one would decide her fate for her ever again.