Chapter 2 - The Flashback at the Lake House
Two years earlier.
The Colorado air had always felt a little too thin, a little too cold, even in July. Olivia sat at the edge of the wooden dock, her bare feet hovering inches above the dark, icy water of the lake.
A sharp shove between her shoulder blades had sent her sprawling forward, her ribs slamming violently against the rough-hewn cedar planks of the dock. The breath exploded from her lungs in a ragged gasp.
"Watch where you're sitting, loser," Tyler had laughed, his voice ringing with effortless cruelty as he jogged past with a fishing rod slung over his shoulder. "You're always in the damn way."
Back then, Olivia had curled into a ball, biting her lip until it bled to keep from crying out. When she limped back into the kitchen, gasping for air and clutching her side, Jennifer had been slicing lemons for iced tea.
"Stop slouching, Olivia," Jennifer had snapped without looking up. "You’re always trying to throw a pity party whenever Tyler has friends over. Go take some ibuprofen and quit whining."
Robert had walked in shortly after, ruffled a hand through Tyler’s hair, and laughed. "Must be hard being a teenage girl, huh? Everything's a tragedy."
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They had laughed. They had normalized her pain, weaponized her reactions, and built a fortress of denial around Tyler’s golden-child status. Every bruise, every sprained wrist, every mysterious ache was written off as Olivia’s "clumsiness" or her desperate need for attention.
And now, lying on a hospital bed with a paralyzed lower body, Olivia realized the terrifying truth: her family wasn't just blind. They were accomplices.
