“I’m confused,” I admit. “I don’t have any clue what I’m supposed to do and how I’m going to handle this. I’m so furious at him for what he did, but then I think about my life and I feel like I can’t get too mad because I was happy. I loved my life. I loved him. I love him. Then I wonder if I have Stockholm syndrome.”

“Your father cares greatly for you.”

“I know.” I do and that’s the problem. “He’s my dad, he’s supposed to protect me. He made this horrible mess, and I’m left to deal with the fallout on my own.” I gesture toward the TV, where reporters are discussing me. How could anyone ever be prepared for this?

“You’re not on your own,” she reassures me.

“But I feel like I am. People keep telling me that they understand how I feel, but how can they when I don’t even know how I feel?”

It’s too much. It’s all too much for one person.

“You are allowed to feel however you want. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that it’s not going to be difficult, because it is. But it’ll make it easier if you talk to us about it instead of bottling everything in.”

I think back to being at the house and what happened when I decided to unleash all I was feeling. How I destroyed nearly a decade’s worth of memories. “I’m scared of what I’m feeling. I’m terrified about how much this is going to change everything. Not just my future, but what I think about my past.” I glare at the TV.

“Maybe I should change the channel,” Grandma Gleason says as she puts on the local NBC station out of Green Bay. We both gasp. A reporter is outside my home. Not the home of Amanda Linsley, but of Allison Smith. Me. The real me.

They know. Everybody knows now.

“… it’s in this house that Amanda Linsley and her father lived under aliases for the past eight years.”

The screen splits from the young male reporter standing outside my house to a female anchor sitting behind a desk. “And do we know what names Amanda and her father have been using?”

The reporter nods for a minute. “Unfortunately, Andrea, nobody in this small, tight-knit community is talking at this time. But we do know that she goes to the local high school and is regarded as an excellent student. Her father worked in construction, and they are, allegedly, well liked. But no specifics have been given.”

I let out a breath that my real name, well, not my real name, but the name that I know—Allison Smith—is secret for now. I once googled my name and couldn’t find me. There are way too many Ally Smiths to choose from.