Chapter 1: The Invisible Girl
My name is Emily. I was thirteen years old when the world cracked open and swallowed my childhood whole. Before the shadow of disease fell across our lives, my father and I inhabited the same physical address, yet we orbited entirely different suns.
He was not a cruel man. He was not the sort of patriarch who raised his voice in anger or deliberately ignored my existence. He was simply… absent. His attention was a currency constantly spent elsewhere. If he wasn’t clocking grueling hours at the garage, he was completely consumed by his motorcycle club. The heavy leather jackets, the deafening roar of customized engines, the spontaneous cross-country road trips, the sacred weekend rides—that brotherhood was his true North.
Consequently, my life’s milestones—the awkward middle school parent-teacher conferences, the chaotic birthday parties, the excruciatingly long dance recitals—were relegated to the background. I grew accustomed to watching other children sprint into their fathers’ waiting arms after a performance, while my mother sat isolated in the crowded auditorium, a stoic sentinel guarding the perpetually empty folding chair beside her.
Whenever I dared to ask where Dad was, the explanations flowed freely, rehearsed and hollow.]
