Chapter 3 - THE NOTE IN HER BACKPACK
I drove to the school faster than I should have.
My hands were shaking on the steering wheel.
Not because I was angry.
Because I was scared.
Scared of what I might discover.
When I arrived, Mireya’s teacher, Mrs. Carter, was waiting near the front office.
She looked uncomfortable.
Concerned.
“Mr. Cullen…”
“Where is my daughter?”
“She’s in my classroom.”
I walked past her immediately.
Mireya was sitting at a small desk.
Holding a drawing.
When she saw me, she stood up.
“Daddy.”
I hugged her.
But this time…
She hugged me back harder.
Mrs. Carter closed the door behind us.
“I want you to understand something.”
She placed a folded piece of paper on the table.
“We don’t normally interfere in family matters.”
I opened it.
My hands froze.
The handwriting was messy.
A child’s handwriting.
Three simple words.
“I AM SCARED.”
I looked at Mireya.
“Sweetheart…”
She looked down.
“I didn’t want to write it.”
“Why did you?”
“Because I thought nobody would believe me.”
Those words destroyed me.
Mrs. Carter continued.
“Mireya has been coming to school without eating breakfast.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“She says she’s not allowed to make noise in the morning.”
I looked at my daughter.
“Mireya?”
She stayed silent.
Then she whispered:
“Tove says I’m too much work.”
My chest tightened.
The woman I married.
The woman I trusted.
Had been making my daughter feel like a burden.
But then Mrs. Carter added something else.
Something I wasn’t prepared for.
“There’s more.”
“What?”
She hesitated.
“We noticed bruises on her arm last week.”
My entire body went cold.
“Bruises?”
“We asked her about them.”
“And?”
Mrs. Carter looked at Mireya.
“She said she fell.”
I turned toward my daughter.
“Mireya…”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“I lied.”
The room went silent.
“Why?”
She wiped her face.
“Because Tove told me if I told you…”
She stopped.
“Tell me.”
Mireya looked terrified.
“She said you would lose everything.”
I frowned.
“What does that mean?”
My daughter slowly reached into her backpack.
And pulled out something I had never seen before.
A small phone.
Not hers.
Not mine.
Someone had hidden it inside.
Mrs. Carter looked shocked.
“I found that this morning.”
I picked it up.
The screen was already open.
There was a recording.
One single audio file.
Created three days ago.
My finger hovered over the play button.
Then I pressed it.
And the voice that came through the speaker…
was Tove’s.
“Your father doesn’t need to know everything.”
I stopped breathing.
May you like
Because the next sentence changed everything.
“Especially not what happens when he leaves the house.”
