I don't push. I spent weeks hiding my own crisis behind those same two words, and I'm not a hypocrite.
But watching him carry a weight he won't share feels like swallowing a fish hook—it goes down easy and tears on the way back up.
He leaves the kitchen with his coffee, his closed expression, and I stand at the counter and wonder when we became two people taking turns holding secrets.
* * *
The notification arrives while I'm getting dressed. My phone buzzes on the nightstand.
I almost ignore it.
I've been ignoring most notifications since I set my profiles to private.
But this one is an email, routed through my university account, and the subject line stops my hands mid-zipper.
HALSTEAD — Morgantown Address Identified
Someone has forwarded me a link to the true crime forum.
The thread has grown. New posts, new commenters, new amateur detectives dissecting my father's crime over their morning coffee.
And at the bottom of the newest post, a screenshot of my apartment building.
Not the inside. The outside. The parking lot, the entrance, the number on the door. Taken from across the street, close enoughto read the building number, far enough to avoid looking like they were standing on the property.
My apartment. My address. My home. My name on a stranger's screen like a pin dropped on a map.
Posted on a public forum with a caption that reads:
Confirmed—subject lives in this complex. Morgantown, WV. University area.
Subject.
They're calling me a subject. Like I'm a case file. Like I'm fucking evidence.
My legs give out. I sit on the edge of Rookie's bed with the phone in my lap and stare at the screen until the letters blur.
The apartment I cleaned every morning. The bed I made before my coffee brewed. The door I locked and tested and locked again.
None of it matters.
The walls don't matter. The locks don't matter. Someone stood outside my building with a camera and turned my safe space into a pin on a map for strangers to find.
My phone rings. It’s Mom.
I pick up because I always pick up. "Hey."
Her voice is thin and climbing. "Saylor, someone sent me a link. There's a website with your apartment building on it. Your building. With a photo."
She's seen it. Someone sent it to her.
My mother, who changed her name and rebuilt her life and checks her locks every night, is now looking at a photograph of her daughter's home posted on a forum dedicated to her ex-husband's crime.
"I know." I press my palm against my thigh hard enough to leave a mark. "I saw it."
"You need to move. Saylor, you need to?—"
"I'm not at my apartment." My voice is steadier than my pulse. "I haven't been there in a few days. I'm safe, Mom. Focus on you right now."