I put my hand on the wall.
Fainted. Collapsed. Medical advice.
Every terrible thing I'd built in the dark the night before — the suspicion of Derek, the story I'd been too ashamed to even say out loud to Scott — collapsed with it.
My daughter hadn't been hiding something being done to her.
She'd been hiding something happening inside her.
And the man I'd spent a night silently accusing in my own head had, I was about to learn, been the only adult my frightened daughter had trusted with the truth.
Chapter 3: The Secret Audrey Carried
It all came out that night, in pieces, through tears, at our kitchen table — the place where she used to pirouette into the fridge.
A month earlier, Audrey had collapsed mid-combination at the barre.
The studio got her to urgent care, and because I was in a meeting I didn't see and Scott was on a site with his phone off, the person who answered, the person already waiting in the parking lot to drive her home, was Derek.
