Their Obedient Youngest Daughter Stopped Coming Home Chapter 07
“How did you find me?”
I leaned against the doorframe, making no move to let her in.
Blythe lowered her head for a moment, searching for the right words.
“I saw your interview online. There was one shot where you walked out of campus, so I started looking at apartments around the university.”
She paused. “Then I found a post from Romy. One of her pictures accidentally showed this building number.”
I looked at her without saying anything.
From a single frame in a video to a building number hidden in a social media post—she had really been searching.
That was what made it ironic.
“If you’d spent that much effort caring about me on any day over the last eighteen years, you wouldn’t be standing in this hallway.”
Her lips parted, but nothing came out.
I stepped aside. “Come in. The neighbors don’t need a show.”
She walked in carrying a paper bag, sat down on the small stool in the living room, and set it on the table.
“I brought these for you. Butter shortbread. You loved them when you were little.”
“No. I loved blueberry muffins. You loved butter shortbread.”
—
She froze. A crack appeared in her carefully composed expression, like a typo caught in a perfectly rehearsed speech.
“I… I got it mixed up.”
“You did. You mixed me up with yourself.”
She didn’t argue.
I poured her a glass of water and set it in front of her.
Then I leaned against the kitchen doorway.
“So. Why are you here?”
“Mom asked me to check on you.”
“Why didn’t she come herself?”
“She said you probably wouldn’t open the door.”
I laughed quietly. “She guessed right.”
Blythe clasped her hands on her knees, knuckles white.
“Ellis, can you just tell me what happened?”
“You’ve never been like this. How did you just suddenly…”
“Suddenly?” My smile disappeared. “You think this was sudden?”
“At the graduation party, when someone asked what school I got into, not one person at that table knew the answer.”
“My acceptance letter sat in a drawer for forty days, unopened.”
“The three of you walked past that room every single day. No one ever
—
opened it. And you think this was sudden?”
She lowered her head.
“Mom always said I was the easy one. Do you know what that really meant?”
“It means I wasn’t worth the worry. My life, my feelings—none of it mattered. I didn’t matter.”
“I know none of you did it on purpose. You just got used to it—used to me being there, staying quiet, never causing trouble.”
“So when I disappeared, it took you three days to notice. Three days.”
Blythe’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry.”
“Blythe, I don’t need an apology.”
My voice stayed flat. There was no anger in it. No bitterness.
“An apology doesn’t fix anything. You say you’re sorry. Then what?”
“You go home, tell Mom and Dad I’m fine, that I just need some time. And everything goes back to the way it was.”
“You stay the daughter everyone remembers, and I go back to being the easy one.”
“It won’t.” She stood up. “I talked to Mom. She knows she messed up.”
“What exactly does she know?”
“She knows… she shouldn’t have ignored you.”
“What about the details?”
—
“Does she know every gift from my graduation party was recorded under your name?”
“Does she know I never saw the thousand dollars Aunt Margo gave me?”
“Does she know she called it a family photo with the three of us on Christmas?”
Blythe’s face drained of color.
“What gifts? What do you mean, three of us?”
“You didn’t know?”
“I didn’t.”
She really didn’t.
She had stood in the spotlight for so long, she’d never seen what was left in the shadows.
That wasn’t her fault. But it wasn’t a cost I should have had to bear.
“Now you know. So go home.”
“Ellis…”
“I don’t hate you, or Mom, or Dad. I just don’t want to go back to that place anymore.”
“I stood there for eighteen years. It was so cramped I forgot what it felt like to stand up straight.”
Her tears finally fell, one after another, landing on the paper bag of butter shortbread.
—
“What do you want? Just tell me. I’ll talk to them.”
“I don’t want anything anymore.” I meant it.
Once, I wanted a place in the family portrait.
I wanted my own lobster at the holiday table.
I wanted Mom to remember the date of my parent-teacher conferences.
I wanted Dad’s eyes to stop on me for just one second.
But after wanting those things for so long and never having them, I eventually stopped hoping for them.
The disappointment never really went away. I just learned not to expect anything anymore.
“You should go.”
I opened the door.
She stood there, crying hard but silently.
Before she left, she turned back one last time.
“Do you remember that time you dropped the plate, when we were little?”
“I helped you pick up the pieces. I remember.”
“That day, I promised myself I’d protect you.”
She wiped away her tears.
—
“But I didn’t.”
The door closed.
I stood there for a long time.
Then I bent down, picked up the bag of butter shortbread, and dropped it into the trash.
Not out of spite. I really didn’t like butter shortbread.
She hadn’t even known that.
That night, a text came from an unfamiliar number. It was Mom.
[Ellis, Blythe said you’re doing okay in Riverton.]
[I know I’ve done some things wrong, but you can’t cut off your family over little things like this. Every family has its rough patches.]
[If you need money, just tell me. I’ll send you some.]
She still thought this was about money.
She still thought those eighteen years were just little things.
She still believed money could fix every hole.
I deleted the message without replying.