He Watched Me Freeze Now He Begs For My Return Chapter 26
A week after the house was sold, Paige wrote to me.
The letter didn’t come to my apartment. It was passed through our lawyers.
For the first time, she didn’t order me to apologize.
She didn’t accuse me of being too sensitive.
She admitted that most of the pranks had been her idea.
She liked watching me panic, because every time I broke down, Robert and Elaine would gather around her and laugh. And yes, she had wanted to steal Caleb from me—not because she loved him, but because he was something I had.
“I thought that as long as you kept losing, I would always be the daughter they loved most.”
At that point in the letter, the ink had blurred.
“Later, I found out the only thing they loved was their own secret. Not me.”
Paige wrote that she had recovered the money her mother left her, but she didn’t know where to go. Everyone who knew her had seen those videos. When she walked into a restaurant, people recognized her as the woman who had abandoned her cousin in a blizzard.
She wanted me to have the released footage taken down and publicly say that I forgave her.
“We were both ruined by them. You should understand me better than anyone.”
I set the letter on the table.
In the past, maybe that one phrase—*both of us*—would have made me soften.
But we were never the same.
Losing her mother was a tragedy. Being deceived by her adoptive parents was a betrayal. All of that was real.
But it was also real that she had taken her pain and handed it to me to carry for her.
I had not kept feeding those videos to the media. I had not encouraged anyone to attack her. Once the news cycle moved on, I had my lawyer decline every further interview request.
But I was not going to erase what happened for her sake.
I had my lawyer reply:
“Nora will not interfere with your use of the trust that belongs to you, nor will she participate in any public discussion directed at you. But she does not accept your apology, will not provide a statement of forgiveness, and requires that you cease all contact.”
After she received the reply, Paige never wrote again.
A few months later, Sarah heard that she had left Colorado.
No one knew where she went.
I didn’t ask.
At last, she had to face her own life alone.
Just as I had, on that blizzard night.
The difference was, no one was taking bets on how long it would take for her to break.