Behind the heavy mahogany front door of our house, the pastel world bled into absolute darkness.
The punishments had begun as subtle corrections when I was six, shortly after the adoption was finalized. A skipped meal for a spilled glass of water. A harsh grip on my wrist if I didn’t smile wide enough for the camera. But the cruelty quickly metastasized into a twisted routine of psychological and physical warfare.
My bedroom was a showroom for the blog, but I rarely slept there. My actual domain was the laundry room—a windowless concrete box smelling of bleach and mildew. When Thomas hosted his business partners, or Rebecca hosted her book club, I was shoved into the dark, the heavy door clicking shut, leaving me with the humming vibration of the washing machine for company.
I remembered the ‘silent days’. If I spoke out of turn, I was forbidden to make a sound for forty-eight hours. If I broke the silence, I was subjected to ‘floor meals’—forced to eat scraps of bread off the cold kitchen tile like a dog, while Thomas stood over me, his jaw clenched, mocking my tears. “I’ll send you back broken if you embarrass me,” he would hiss, his breath hot against my neck.
