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Joseph used to tell stories—Noah and Daniel and David, now and then the Brothers Grimm. I loved the rhythm of the storytelling. The music of it. I could sit for hours and listen. That rhythm infects my words even now, as brutal and unlovely as they are. Once upon a time, there was a girl locked away in a tower , I think.

“Shit,” Connor says. He’s pale-faced. He sinks into the chair near me. “ That’s what happened? That’s what this photo is from?”

I feel oddly focused on my own extremities. The feeling of my fingers against each other, the flex of my toes. The sensation of my teeth in my mouth, each individually defined. It’s like I am being separated into my component parts, the sense of the whole of me dissolving.

Connor stares at me. “You said your parents are still alive. So Joseph…”

I shrug. “It turns out that a sixteen-year-old girl with serious blood loss isn’t terrifically strong. I did some damage. He needed a lot of stitches, lost a lot of blood, nothing worse. But I thought I’d killed him. I ran. Didn’t get far. I was lucky. The cop who found me believed me. He took me to the hospital. They took photos. And he offered my parents and the Freys a… a deal.”

As in, the report got filed, but it didn’t go farther than that. The Freys and the Scotts were spared legal scrutiny, and so was I. I went to live with Joseph’s sister, a woman who didn’t love me but provided what I needed—a safe place, an education, time to heal.

And no one ever spoke of it again. That was the agreement, and it’s held this long.

Connor listens to me explain all this with rapt attention. When I’m done, he rubs a hand over his face.

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”

“I’ve never told anyone,” I say.

“I’m not anyone. I’m your fiancé. You told me your parents were dead,” he says, voice raw.

“It’s what I tell everyone. I didn’t think it would matter.”

“How could it not matter?” Connor is incredulous.

“Because you weren’t supposed to be real,” I say.

I didn’t want to tell him, because then he would look at me like he is now. With pity and disgust. With horror at the wounded thing in front of him.

“You had to know my family would look into you,” Connor says.

“I was going to tell you,” I say.

“When?” he demands.

I look up at him. He’s angry. Maybe he’s right to be. But I don’t have space for guilt right now. “You lied, too,” I say.

His face goes still. “What?”

“You lied about how we met. You lied about being friends with Harper. You knew who I was and you asked her to introduce us, and then you lied about that and made her lie, too. Why?”

He draws in a long breath through his nose. Then he lets it out, turning his face away. “I can’t do this right now,” he says. “I can’t…” He stands. He steps toward the bedroom, then halts. For a moment I think he’s going to turn, to say something, but instead he moves again, striding into the bedroom. He slams the door shut behind him.

I sit alone on the couch, feeling the pieces of myself slowly cohering again into something approaching human.

All those stories that Joseph told were meant to impart a lesson. Mine is no different. I didn’t always understand the morals that Joseph wanted me to learn, and I don’t think Connor has understood this one, either. The story isn’t about what happened in the attic. It’s about what happened after—what happens when I feel trapped.

It is dangerous to corner a wild animal. Even a wounded one.

You brought me here, Connor. I still don’t understand why.

But I’m going to find out.