Chapter 13
Margaret Prescott did not break.
Not at first.
She smiled for cameras.
Called the charges malicious.
Called me unstable.
Called Christian “a sensitive artist manipulated by greedy women.”
Christian heard that from jail and broke immediately.
He asked for a deal.
His love for his mother lasted exactly as long as her protection did.
He confessed to knowing about my father’s sabotage.
He claimed Margaret planned it.
He claimed Lawson handled my fertility treatments.
He claimed Sabrina knew about Leo but not the acid.
Sabrina denied everything until prosecutors showed her messages.
If her face is ruined, America will pity Christian and stop asking about me.
After that, she cried.
I watched the reports from bed.
My bandages were changed every morning.
I had not yet looked fully in a mirror.
Dr. Chen did not rush me.
“Your face is yours,” she said. “You decide when to meet it.”
One afternoon, Leo’s foster mother brought him to the secure facility for a supervised meeting with investigators.
He saw me in the garden, bandaged and quiet.
He approached slowly.
“Did Daddy hurt your face?”
My throat tightened.
“Yes.”
“Mommy said you made him sad.”
I closed my eyes.
Then opened them.
“Grown-ups are responsible for what they do when they are sad.”
He thought about that.
“I’m sad.”
“I know.”
“I don’t hurt people.”
A tear slid down my cheek.
“No, sweetheart. You don’t.”
He handed me a crayon drawing.
A lady with half her face covered and a little boy under a sun.
May you like
“This is you not being dead,” he said.
I laughed and cried at once.
