Maybe it was my heartbreak, but somehow he looked frightened.

His hold on my wrist suddenly loosened.

I was a mess, scouring through the trash like a lunatic.

Collapsed on the ground, people's stares cutting through me like I was some sort of apparition.

Robert finally snapped to, realizing what was happening.

He squatted down in front of me, eyeing the black trash bag in my grip, then back at me.

His face twisted with concern, he stammered, "Jane, you've lost it, haven't you? If you're sick, get help. This can't be Nia!"

"Even if you resent me, you shouldn't damn our daughter like that."

"Are you even listening to me?!"

He shoved me down, yanked the bag from my hands, and held it aloft.

But he couldn't bring himself to drop it.

I watched his hands tremble, unable to stay still.

A junior officer who had fetched my meds rushed over, pulling me to my feet.

He turned a stern gaze on Robert, "Mr. Salome, you're Nia's father, correct? Mrs. Salome mentioned you were supposed to pick Nia up the night she went missing. We need to talk."

Robert's complexion turned ashen. He tried to reach out to steady me, shaking.

"I don't understand... Jane... how this could have happened, how... this could be our daughter."

He paused, his voice faltering.

I pushed his hand away, my voice cold, "Are you actually saying that this heap of trash, trampled and tossed by you, isn't our daughter?"

"Robert, how can you even ask me that? Nia called you 'dad' for years."

"Even on the day she died, as I drove her to school, she kept asking if you were really going to pick her up after school."

"But what were you doing? You knew a killer was out there, the schools and police were blasting warnings for parents to pick up their kids."

"Yet, you left her stranded because Sienna called you."

My voice cracked, the most raw and intense outpouring I've had since I left the mountains.

Robert was stunned, his eyes bloodshot, and he was hitting his own head in frustration, "It never went wrong before; I thought it wouldn't matter this time either, Jane, it wasn't deliberate."

I just scoffed, tears streaming uncontrollably while my eyes burned.

I thrust "my daughter" toward him.

"Do you know why I've always been so hands-on with everything about Nia, and this time I let you pick her up?"

"Because she felt like her dad didn't really love her."

"She was always so well-behaved around you, yet you said she wasn't bubbly or cheerful like other girls, that she was too much like her mom, too calculated, too eager to please."

"Just because you once complimented another kid's grades, she strived to be the best, telling me every day after school and during every break, ‘Mom, I don't want to rest; I want to be first. Dad loves kids who are good at school.' She pushed herself to excel in every test, but what did you do? All you could say was, 'Don't get cocky.' Did you ever see her, running up to you with her test, beaming with pride, only to leave crushed, pushing herself even harder?"

"Even this time, she told me she was scared because all the other girls' dads were picking them up, and you were the only one who never had. When I told her you would pick her up, do you have any idea how excited she was?"

I watched as Robert's face turned ashen. In a frenzy, I lashed out at him.

I threw Nia's smartwatch at him.

He swayed as he read the messages, then looked at me, crying.

"She's been acing her tests for the past six months, always asking me for rewards, and you kept saying she was too immature, just obsessed with money. But you didn't know she was also tutoring other kids, explaining homework to them. She had a piggy bank with three thousand dollars saved up."

"She saw a watch on one of her classmates' dads she liked, said she wanted to earn enough to buy you one for your birthday because she thought you didn't love her enough, that she wasn't good enough."

"She believed if she could just be a bit more dutiful, love you a bit more, then maybe you'd start to love her too."

"Robert, do you even have a heart?"

It started as a cathartic release, a venting of pent-up frustrations.

But in the end, I just broke down completely.

They say a daughter is her father's princess, supposed to be cherished.

Every time I saw her get dismissed by Robert, it tore me apart.

I argued, I fought, but it only made her more upset.

I compromised and tried to make up for it by being even kinder to her.

Luckily, she was optimistic, kind, brave, smart, and emotionally stable.

Like a moth drawn to a flame, she kept trying, thinking she could earn your love through her efforts.

"Look at your daughter."

I moved the bag closer to him. "Can you even imagine how much she suffered before she died?"