Hearing her say it aloud sent a spike of pure, crystalline terror through my chest.
Two weeks ago, my Aunt Linda—my mother’s sister, who always seemed slightly uncomfortable with my family’s dynamics but never spoke up—had called me in tears. She had visited my parents’ house and found a stack of brochures on the kitchen island. They weren’t for rehab. They were for a high-security, lockdown psychiatric facility three states away.
My parents hadn’t just faked a diagnosis to excuse my behavior to the neighbors. They had paid off a disgraced, unethical doctor to sign involuntary commitment papers. They were planning to ambush me after the ceremony, sedate me, and lock me in a ward where my phone would be confiscated and my words would be dismissed as the ravings of a madwoman.
If I was declared legally incompetent, I couldn’t testify. I couldn’t press charges. I couldn’t expose the hundreds of thousands of dollars they had stolen. I would simply cease to exist legally.
I reached up, wiping a stray drop of blood from the corner of my mouth where my teeth had caught my lip. The taste of it grounded me.
I didn’t step back from my father. I lunged forward, grabbing the center microphone stand with both hands.
“I am not sick,” my voice exploded through the towering concert speakers, the sheer volume vibrating in the floorboards beneath my feet. The sudden noise made several people in the front rows flinch.
“Shut off that microphone!” my father roared, attempting to shove Dr. Wallace aside to reach me.
“Leave it on!” Dr. Wallace countered, pushing back against my father with surprising strength. He turned to look at me, seeing the blood on my chin and the desperate, terrifying clarity in my eyes. “Speak, Mia.”
“They are holding fraudulent psychiatric evaluations!” I shouted, my voice echoing off the brick buildings surrounding the courtyard. “Signed by a doctor they bribed! They are trying to gain legal conservatorship over me right now to silence me!”
The murmur from the crowd turned into a massive, rolling shockwave of whispers and gasps. My mother’s theatrical crying abruptly stopped. Her mouth hung open.
“She’s insane!” Ethan shouted from the grass, his voice cracking with sudden panic. He took a step toward the stairs. “Someone grab her, she has a weapon!”
“Do I?” I challenged, gripping the stand tighter. I looked directly at the camera positioned at the back of the quad, knowing it was feeding directly to the massive screen above me. “They need conservatorship because if I am declared legally incompetent, I can’t testify against them for the quarter of a million dollars they stole in my name to pay off my brother’s illicit gambling debts!”
“Liar!” my father screamed, his composure entirely gone. He looked like a cornered animal.
“Show them,” I whispered into the microphone.
In the tech booth, Chloe slammed her hand onto the keyboard.
The live feed of my bruised, bleeding face vanished from the forty-foot LED screen dominating the stage. The crowd let out a collective, audible breath as a new image flickered to life in brilliant, high-definition color.
It was a bank statement. Blown up to the size of a two-story building.
It was the joint account my parents owned. Highlighted in blinding, undeniable yellow were three separate deposits of federal student loans, issued by the Department of Education. Directly beneath each deposit were immediate wire transfers to offshore holding companies and known casino accounts.
My father froze. His arms dropped to his sides. He turned slowly, his neck moving in stiff, mechanical increments, to look at the massive screen behind him.
The color completely abandoned his face. The aggressive, towering enforcer who had struck me moments ago suddenly looked incredibly fragile, stripped naked under the blinding light of the truth.
But Chloe wasn’t done.
