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.

I stared at the words.

Avery leaned closer.

I kept reading.

*The money came afterward.*

*The first lie was about another girl.*

***

I looked at Avery.

"Another girl?"

She nodded slowly.

"There's more."

She opened a second envelope.

Inside was an old hospital photograph.

Two young women stood beside a vending machine.

One was me.

I was nineteen.

My hair was longer.

My face looked thinner.

I was wearing the familiar blue hospital gown I'd worn during my treatment.

Beside me stood a girl with short dark hair and a shy smile.

I knew her.

Or at least, I thought I did.

A memory surfaced.

A hospital corridor.

A girl sitting beside me on a bench.

She was drawing flowers in the margin of a newspaper.

I remembered her saying she wanted to become a photographer.

Then I remembered something else.

Her name.

"Nina."

Avery looked up.

"You remember her?"