He Watched Me Freeze Now He Begs For My Return Chapter 10
The camera angle was off, clearly from a GoPro left on by mistake in Paige’s room.
Late at night, my mother lowered her voice. “Are we really going to show all those videos of Nora at the gala? What if people think we’re bullying her? It could hurt the family image.”
My father was quiet for a moment before speaking.
“As long as Paige is happy. Her mother was my own sister. I was drunk that night, and I was the one driving. I killed her. And you testified to the police that she was the one behind the wheel.”
“Wasn’t adopting Paige just our way of using a good deed to shut people up and make ourselves feel better?”
The ballroom fell into an instant, dead silence.
But the video kept playing.
My father said, “Forget bullying Nora. If Paige wants Caleb, I’ll find a way. Slip Caleb some sedatives, take a few pictures of him with Paige, and Nora will disappear on her own.”
“Paige has always believed Caleb should be hers. If this engagement falls apart, so much the better.”
A wave of shocked gasps exploded through the room.
Robert and Elaine lunged for the stage, screaming at the staff to shut it down, but two security guards held them back.
Paige stood frozen, her face as white as paper.
“That’s not true!”
Trembling, she threw herself toward the screen.
“He didn’t kill my mother! Nora fabricated this!”
No one paid her any attention.
Among the guests, a police officer and a prosecutor exchanged a grave look and reached for their phones. Caleb was staring at my parents, and at the mention of being drugged, his expression was pure fear and disgust.
That was where the video ended.
I took off my headphones and quietly turned off my phone. I felt no triumph, no guilt.
Because the humiliation they were suffering now wasn’t one-ten-thousandth of what I had lived through for twenty years.