I am Samantha, you can call me Sam. And this is my story.
I'm nineteen years old—the only daughter of my mom and dad. The spoiled daughter, the kind who always got what she wanted because there was no one else to divide the attention.
No brothers, no sisters. Just me. For a long time, I thought that meant I was special, that the universe had gifted me a rare position: the center of my parents' world. But being the only one also meant being the only witness. And sometimes being the only witness hurts more than anything.
I had friends, of course—a group that was mostly guys. I always gravitated to them, maybe because it felt safer than being alone with myself.
Maybe because when you're the girl with no siblings, you grow hungry for noise, for laughter, for company. Or maybe it was something else. Maybe it was the fact that I became the kind of girl people called flirty, the kind who threw herself into fun just to forget that home wasn't safe anymore.
People think personality is born from some inner seed. I don't believe that. I think it's a mirror. And my mirror cracked the day I saw my mom on the sofa.
Way back when I was ten years old. Old enough to understand, too young to know what to do. I walked into the living room, barefoot, the floor cold under my toes.
The house was quiet except for a strange rhythm—a sound that didn't belong. I remember pausing, holding my breath, and then seeing them. My mom and her boss.
His hand tangled in her hair. Their mouths pressed together in a way that made my stomach clench. The air smelled thick, like perfume mixed with sweat. My chest squeezed until it hurt.
She didn't see me. Neither did he. I backed away, shaking, retreating toward my room where the shadows on the walls looked like they were leaning over me, whispering secrets I didn't want to hear. I told myself it was a mistake, that maybe I hadn't seen clearly. But mistakes don't repeat themselves every evening at seven o'clock.
Every night, I would hear the sound of the front door, the low murmur of voices, the thump of the sofa springs. I would stand behind my bedroom door, barely breathing, while my mom played her same routine with him. My heart learned how to throb with quiet fury before I was even a teenager.
And then one day, after a month of this, my dad returned home from overseas, where he had been on business."
He looked different. His skin was dull, his eyes sharper, like blades searching for the truth. And he found it.
I was hiding at the top of the stairs when the shouting began.
"Leave me alone, Mark! I'm not happy with you anymore. You cannot give me what I need!" My mother's voice was raw, desperate, like a knife tearing through fabric.
"After all I did for you, for our daughter, to just build this family!" My dad's voice cracked with something heavier than anger. "I sacrificed myself, worked every damn day to give you both a future! And this is all you can do? To cheat?"
The sound came suddenly—Plaaap! A slap that echoed through the walls. My mother's cheek flared red as she staggered back.
I pressed my hand over my mouth, but I could still hear her sob. Could still hear the way my father's breath came out like broken glass. His anger wasn't just anger—it was grief, betrayal, despair.
Minutes later, the front door slammed. My father didn't return that night. Or the next.
Days passed, then weeks. I remember the silence more than anything. The silence at breakfast. The silence at night. My mom tried to keep moving, but even her perfume smelled weaker, like the scent itself had lost faith in her.
And then—one afternoon—she grabbed my hand with trembling fingers. Her nails dug into my skin. No explanations. Just a taxi ride, the city blurring outside the window, and then the sharp white brightness of a hospital corridor.
We walked into a room where a body lay covered by a blue cloth. The air was cold, sterile, yet my skin burned. My mother's sobs cracked through the silence as she pulled the cloth back.
It was my dad. Pale. Still. His lips sealed forever. His eyes closed like he had finally surrendered to sleep he could not wake from.
The tears slipped down my cheeks without permission. I didn't want to cry in front of her, but I couldn't hold it back. That was the moment the world split open. My father was gone.
Suicide. That word still claws through me. They said he jumped from the thirtieth floor of a building. They called it depression. I called it her fault.
At his funeral, I stared at the coffin and thought about how heavy it must be inside. How heavy it was to carry a body that once carried me on his shoulders. I wondered if the earth would feel the weight of his disappointment when he was lowered in.
But grief didn't stop my mother.
Just a week later, she started bringing home new men. Different faces, different colognes, same routine. The walls of our home became stained with strangers. I would hide in my room, the sounds seeping through the cracks like poison.
That was when hatred grew inside me—not slow, but sudden, like a wildfire catching on dry grass. I hated her. For what she did. For what she ruined. For what she cost me.
At school, my friends started avoiding me. "Daughter of a slut," they whispered. They didn't need to shout it—I felt it in their silence, in the way they stepped back when I walked past. My father was gone. My mother was rotting from the inside. And me? I was left standing in the ashes of a family that never existed.
So when I turned nineteen, I told myself: I can do whatever I want. No one to answer to. No one to trust. No one to disappoint but myself.
I slept with guys. I drank until my veins felt like they were filled with fire. I partied until my ears rang. I turned my life into smoke, into distraction. If my mom could ruin a family for desire, then why couldn't I ruin myself for the same reason? At least my ruin would be mine.
But then—I met Aiden.
Aiden wasn't like the others. He was my classmate, a boy with a smile that didn't mock me and eyes that didn't measure me like I was a piece of meat.
He treated me differently. He listened when I spoke. He laughed at my sarcasm. He carried my bag once when it was too heavy. Stupid things, really, but for me they were everything.
I fell in love with him slowly, then all at once. He became my home in a world that felt like it had burned down.
With him, the nights were different. Sex wasn't just a weapon I used to numb myself—it became something else, something terrifyingly close to love. With him, I felt the possibility of being seen, of being worth more than the rumors that haunted me.
We had our ups and downs—arguments that turned into silence, silences that turned into desperate kisses—but we stayed. We clung to each other like two broken branches trying to make a tree.
Until the day I caught him.
It was ordinary at first. I walked into his building, climbed the stairs I'd climbed a hundred times, expecting his grin when he opened the door. But the door was unlocked.
Inside, laughter. Not his. A higher voice, light and cruel. And then I saw them.
Aiden and another girl, tangled in sheets, the room heavy with the smell of sex. His hand on her thigh. Her mouth on his neck.
The air went out of me. My heart stopped, then pounded so loud I thought the walls would hear it. My body froze but my mind screamed. Not again. Not this.
And in that moment, it wasn't just him I saw—it was my mother on the sofa, her boss leaning over her. It was my father's broken eyes, the blue cloth at the hospital. It was every betrayal crashing back at once.
I stood in the doorway, shaking, unable to decide if I should scream or collapse.