Chapter 2

After I finished speaking, I left the dinner. I'd barely stepped out of the hotel when my vision went black and I collapsed on the curb.

When I came to, I was already in a hospital bed, and my husband was slumped beside me, fast asleep.

His phone was still lit up. I scrolled through it. The dinners he'd lined up to apologize and beg forgiveness on our daughter's behalf ran all the way to the end of the year.

The most recent thing was a video his brother had forwarded.

I tapped in.

"Elena's Great Reborn Edition," twenty thousand followers, pinned video posted at noon.

Title: Going Crazy Is the Only Way Out of a Toxic Family. Long Live the Madness!

It was the whole clip of her losing it at the dinner and stripping, and the top comment was a high-resolution shot of her ID and family records.

The comments were all cheering her on.

"Wish-fulfillment fiction come to life. Turns out losing it really does solve everything!"

"You go, girl. Now you finally get to run your own life!"

"People don't feel the needle until it's in their own skin. One dose of humiliation and boom, out came the ID and the family papers!"

My heart sank to the bottom. I was about to close it out.

Then a new video popped up.

Posted just now. Title: The Sky Went Dark After All.

This time she'd turned the camera straight on herself.

The background was the rooftop of our building. She was sitting on the railing, looking like she might drop off the edge any second.

"I honestly never thought it would blow up this big, and my parents still managed to smooth it all over for me."

"The CEO of a big company is an old contact of my mom's. My offer's still good. My future's bright. I'll never want for anything."

"But this isn't what I want at all! I just want to be with my Hilary. Even if it means living in a basement, eating instant noodles, giving birth in a bathroom, I could get through all of it!"

"I just want to be with the man I love. Why does that have to be so hard!"

She delivered that last line with such despair and grievance that, for a moment, everyone was feeling sorry for her.

"What a suffocating family. Hugs, girl."

"When are parents ever going to learn to respect their kids!"

"If nothing else works, go straight to your mom's workplace and blow up her career. See how smug she is then!"

"Yeah, isn't your dad a business owner? Report his company for tax evasion. While they're tied up dealing with it, just walk out and leave home for good!"

She liked those comments, then replied.

"Thank you, sweet followers, for all the advice. I'll seriously consider and act on every single one."

Reading that, my hands and feet went cold, and I could barely make out the words on the screen.

After a long while, a new comment popped up.

"What kind of freak show is this comment section? It's the twenty-first century and people still think a man matters more than a future? If you actually buy into this nonsense, you'll have plenty to cry about later!"

I opened her profile. Her pinned video was titled How It Ends When You Marry a Broke Nobody Anyway.

I stared at this absurd scene, not sure whether to cry or laugh.

When I first found out my daughter had a hairstylist boyfriend, my first instinct was to go see what kind of man he was.

I quietly tracked down Hilary Cobb and overheard him at a bar, bragging to his buddies.

"If Elena's family didn't have money, who'd put up with a princess like her? Throwing cash around every chance she gets, never once thinking about her man. Sometimes I really want to smack her one."

I stormed in, and Hilary didn't even flinch. He had the look of a man who thought he held all the cards.

"Elena's crazy in love with me. Even if you tell her about today, it won't do a thing."

"Give me two hundred thousand and I'll disappear from her life for good."

My thoughts drifted back to the present. I gave a tired twist of my lips. The cautionary example was right there in front of us, and yet Elena wouldn't hear a word of it.

When I returned to the comment section, Elena had already left that person a one-star.

"Just stay out of it, lady, okay? Your life's a mess because you've got nothing going for you. The man I picked is different! Besides, I'm an only child. Even if things get hard down the road, all I have to do is cry a little in front of my parents and they'll cave. You think they'd really just watch me die?"

My eyes fixed on those words, and for a long time I couldn't come back to myself.

Not until my husband's broad hand settled over my shoulder. I looked up and met his eyes, and we saw the exact same heartbreak and exhaustion in each other.

After a long silence, my husband spoke.

"Forget it. There's nothing worth being angry about. A daughter who'd throw her life away over a man, we might as well have raised her for nothing."

"When the main account's wrecked, you just start a new one. It's not that big a deal."