Mom is making this worse. Come home and we can fix it privately.
Maya read it once.
Her face emptied.
“He didn’t ask if I was okay,” she said.
No one answered because there was nothing kind to say about that.
At 12:08 p.m., Arthur told me he had enough for the first move.
“What first move?” I asked.
He looked through the glass wall toward Maya’s room.
“The one that keeps them from deciding the story before she can breathe.”
By afternoon, the Vanguard house had gone from silent to frantic.
Celeste left a message first.
Her voice was clipped, offended, almost bored.
“Maya, this has gone far enough. You know exactly how dramatic you can be. I put my hand out because you were hysterical. If you fell, that is not my fault.”
Arthur saved it.
Marcus’s mother sent a text next.
Your accusations could destroy lives.
