Chapter 3 - THE STRATEGY OF ISOLATION
By 2:00 PM that afternoon, Kira arrived at the hospital carrying a bag of fresh clothes, a iced coffee, and a laptop.
Her face was pale, but her eyes burned with a fierce, protective energy. "The group chat from our graduating class is going insane, Natalie," she said, setting the laptop on the rolling tray table. "Someone leaked a ten-second phone video from the crowd right after the paramedics arrived. Everyone knows."
"Does Colin know?" I asked.
"Colin deleted his LinkedIn profile two hours ago," Kira said, a bitter smirk appearing on her face. "His phone is turned off. His friends at his fraternity are scrubbing him from their photos."
My phone chimed on the bedside table.
It was an unknown number. I picked it up and tapped speakerphone.
"Natalie?"
It was Colin. His voice was trembling, stripped of the quiet, smug confidence he had carried on graduation day.
"Why are you calling me, Colin?" I asked flatly.
"Natalie, please," Colin stammered. "Mom is still in a holding cell. Dad tried to hire a private defense attorney, but when the attorney saw the charges and heard about the video, he demanded a fifty-thousand-dollar retainer upfront. Dad had to take out an emergency line of credit on the house."
I stayed silent, letting the quiet hang over the line like a weight.
"Natalie, talk to me!" Colin pleaded, his voice rising in panic. "Mom’s lawyer said that if you sign a non-prosecution affidavit, the DA might downgrade the charges to a misdemeanor assault! She could avoid state prison! She’s fifty-one, Natalie! She won't survive prison!"
"Did you ask her if I would survive losing my eye, Colin?" I asked softly.
Silence. Complete, absolute silence on his end of the line.
"You stood there," I continued, my voice measured and precise. "You stood three steps behind her while she screamed at me. You watched her take off her heel. You watched her shatter my eye socket. And when Dad called me a failure, you turned around and walked away with him."
"I... I was in shock!" Colin cried. "I didn't know she was going to hit you!"
"You knew she hated that I was better than you," I said. "You enjoyed it. You lived off their favoritism for twenty-three years, Colin. You let them sabotage my applications, you let them demand that professors change my grades, and you sat at Ruth's Chris eating steak while I sat in my room studying."
"Natalie, please, we're twins—"
"I don't have a twin anymore," I said. "Tell Dad to save his credit line. He’s going to need it for his own legal fees."
I ended the call and blocked his number.
Kira looked at me, nodding slowly. "That was brilliant."
"It wasn't brilliant, Kira," I said, staring out the hospital window at the grey city skyline. "It was just the truth. They built their entire family identity on a lie that I was inferior. Now the lie is dead, and they're choking on the ashes."
Ten minutes later, Arthur Vance walked back into the room. He was holding a manila folder stamped with a red seal.
"Ms. Mercer," Vance said, his face unreadable. "Your father just made a very foolish mistake."
"What did he do?"
"He went to the university registrar’s office an hour ago," Vance said, pulling out a document. "He attempted to file an emergency injunction to block the official release of your transcript and valedictorian certification, claiming that the academic board engaged in 'bias and procedural fraud.'"
I almost laughed. "He’s still trying to steal the title for Colin?"
"He is," Vance nodded. "And in doing so, he signed a formal affidavit under oath alleging that you bribed a department administrator to alter your senior thesis grade."
Kira gasped. "That's a felony perjury!"
"It is," Vance smiled, a cold, predatory gleam in his eyes. "And because the registrar's office is equipped with digital recording devices, we now have Warren Mercer committing felony perjury and filing a fraudulent legal document on tape. The District Attorney has just issued a secondary warrant for his arrest."
May you like
I leaned back against my pillows, resting my uninjured eye closed.
My parents had spent my entire life trying to trap me in their cage. But they had grown so arrogant, so accustomed to abusing me without consequences, that they were now walking straight into the traps they were trying to set for me.
