Page 106 of Isolation

Like a victim.

Like a statistic.

I have erased that word from my vocabulary. Because if I erased it, then it doesn't exist.

And something that doesn't exist could not have happened.

This room is fucking suffocating. Maybe I can climb out the window. Are there really no other exits other than the door Mia is blocking?

“Rave,” Mia drops her voice, with more tears streaming down her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m not trying to push you. You have every right to discuss this at your own pace. But I am worried about your safety. I don’t know what he is doing to you. What would you do if the situation were reversed? If someone did that to me, would you just sit back and watch?”

“Mia,” I take a horrified step back.

My mouth goes dry. My eyes flicker to a familiar spot on the floor. I might have replaced the carpet with a hardwood floor, butnothinghas changed.

Terrible images start dancing in my head. The thought of Mia lying on that same spot as someone she trusts traps her in and rips into her. The idea of her crying out for help and begging for a way out.

I can't… She can't go through that. She is just a baby—the little princess.

I was the same age as Mia. I know what it does to your young soul when someone you love unconditionally does something unthinkable.

There were other times when Milo didn't stop after I asked him to, but something snapped at that moment. I can't explain it.

I left for Paris the very next day after it happened.

I'd put myself through any hell to protect Mia from that experience. And that’s what she is trying to do right now.

She is putting herself through any hell to protectme, including giving up her favorite person in the world, Milo.

“I'm sorry,” Mia repeats. “I know you are not ready to talk about this. If I didn't believe the situation to be genuinely dangerous for you, I wouldn't push you. It just doesn't make any sense. Instead of reporting him, you are hanging out with him?”

Because I don’t have the Sinclair sibling moral compass!

Milo taught them that society sets the rules, and they have to follow them. If you break the rules, you have to suffer the consequences as punishable by law.

He instilled this moral compass so deep into Mia and Reid, that Mia can’t even release Milo from the same obligations and the standards that he himself set.

She would never be able to understand a man getting away without paying the consequences as demanded by law.

It is the exact damn reason why Milo always insisted on having me send him to jail. He was adamant that going to jail is the only solution if I felt wronged by his actions.

Alternately, if I didn’t feel wronged, it meant that I felt the same as he did.

He refused to understand that I don’t have the same moral compass as the Sinclair siblings. It’s one of the only things I never picked up from them, despite the years together.

Milo has them brainwashed to the point that there could never be another option other than redemption as set by society.

Mia is trying to do the right thing. She is utilizing what she has been taught and facing off with me to protect me.

Despite her young age, she is so capable. Mia is strong. If she were in my shoes, she would have raised hell by now to set things right. But I am not Mia.

I view the world differently.

Good people are capable of doing bad things, and punishment is not the only way to redeem your soul.

Milo is a good man who made some terrible mistakes. I know that.

That knowledge does not take away the hurt from those moments, nor does it decrease the anger I feel angry towards him for making me fear him.