Home Entertainment Game Technology Advertisement Part 2: For eight years, my parents made me leave the house every time my brother brought his fiance over; Mom said, “She comes from a good family, don’t embarrass us”; Dad added, “Just disappear for the weekend”; I did; then one weekend, I never came back; it took them four years to find out where I went.

My bed was stripped.

My medication hidden.

My shoes moved.

My toothbrush removed.

Then, after Avery left Sunday night—

my life was unpacked again.

No wonder Mom always texted instead of simply saying:

Be gone.

Texts made rules feel administrative.

Less like what they really were.

Erasure.

Then Detective Alvarez asked me to come to the station.

“We found something involving your mother.”

“What?”

“She kept a second notebook.”

My yellow notebook had tally marks.

Mom had one too.

Dates.

Every weekend I left.

Beside some:

AVERY HERE

LOCKHEART DINNER

CHURCH

STACEY BACK 9:14

My skin crawled.

“Why track when I returned?”

Detective Alvarez said:

“We asked her.”

I stared.

“You talked to Mom?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

My mother's answer was recorded.

“Because I needed to know she was safe.”

I laughed so hard I almost couldn't breathe.

Safe.

The woman who helped erase me from family history tracked my return time because she worried about me driving at night.