Before I cut the birthday cake, my father kissed me and whispered, “Come sleep next to me tonight”… There was something in her voice that made the knife in my hand tremble.
This photo was taken on the night of my thirteenth birthday. One look at it shows my father, Daniel, hugging me tightly and kissing me on the cheek as I prepared to cut into the chocolate cake. But no one knew what was whispered in my ear that day.
“Emily, come sleep next to me tonight. Please don’t leave me alone.
I was paralyzed. My father had never asked me for anything like that. After my mother died, we both lived alone, but he was always very careful about personal boundaries. Even when I had nightmares as a child, he would sleep in an armchair or take me to my grandmother’s room. So his request immediately terrified me.
What terrified me even more was the expression on his face. He tried to smile at the guests, but his fingers were trembling. When I turned to him, I noticed his eyes were red, as if he’d been crying all day.
“What happened?” I whispered.
He looked at the people gathered in the room and said only one thing:
I’ll explain later. For now, pretend everything is fine.
After that, I couldn’t hear the birthday song anymore. Everyone was clapping, and I was staring at the kitchen door. For a week, strange things had been happening in our house. Dad would wake up at the slightest noise, close the curtains, and repeatedly check the front door. Two days earlier, he’d gotten home from work unseasonably early and spent a long time talking to someone on the phone. When I entered the kitchen, the conversation quickly ended.
“Who was that?” I asked.
“That’s the wrong number,” he replied.
But I heard his last sentence:
Don’t come near my daughter.
The guests left around ten in the evening. Grandma offered to stay with us, but Dad stubbornly refused. He wouldn’t even let me open the door after the last guests had left. He stood at the entrance himself, waited until his cars had driven away, then closed the door and latched the top latch. By then, I was convinced someone was watching us.
