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He was the only dad she knew. Except he wasn’t. He was her kidnapper and abuser. It’s painful to even contemplate.
I feel a vise grip my chest as I keep watching. What on earth possessed Spencer to send this to me a few hours before I have to go on stage? I know the dude is English, but is he actually unhinged?
“Edie,” the reporter continues, “was taken from her family’s house to another state, where she lived in a luxurious home and was homeschooled for her entire childhood and teenage years. She was isolated from all other children, and confined to a few rooms within the house. There is no evidence that she was physically abused, and Edie herself denies that she was ever hit or mistreated physically. Yet, her uncle, the man who raised her as his own child, used the most vicious and cruel emotional abuse and manipulation on her every day. Methods such as punishment and coaxing, bribes and withdrawing affection, and withholding nourishment and sleep, were employed to keep her obedient. There is overwhelming evidence that up to a point in her young life, her uncle, the millionaire identified as Solomon Kennedy, used to treat her, and also address her, as his pet.”
I pause the video.
Pet.
‘Pet.’
‘Some people call me Pet.’
The hairs on my arms stand up. Cold sweat drenches me. I un-pause the video. My mouth hangs open. I forget to close it. I forget what it’s there for. I forget to breathe.
No.
No.
“We can only imagine the kind of isolation she survived,” the reporter says, his eyes glassing over with tears, “but she did survive. She is a survivor.”
The reporter’s eyes lighten up, as if he’s personally proud of her. Idiot.My heart is bursting here, move it along.
“We will get into more detail after the break,” he says, “but just to give you a little idea of the intensity of the trauma this strong and brave young woman has overcome, let me present you with a few facts: First of all, Solomon Kennedy, the man who convinced her he was her father, would dye her hair black. He did it every month since she was four months old.” He squints in disbelief at what he just read on the cue monitor. He grips his earpiece. His fingers are shaking.
“I am being told that the information I just read is, in fact, correct. Edie is a natural redhead, and Solomon had been dyeing her hair black since she was a four-month-old baby. It is unclear whether he did that for fear of her being recognized, but it is possible, since baby photos of Edie had already made the rounds of America at that point. Solomon, according to the mental health professionals who have been working tirelessly on Edie’s case, manipulated her in such a way that he stole her free will. His methods were in some cases so extreme, psychologists say that the victim might be unable to recognize affection for the rest of her life.”
Cold sweat trickles down the back of my neck.
‘The victim.’
Black hair turned to red… No, it can’t be. Who dyes the hair of a baby?Who…?
And then the reporter points to his right, where a photo pops up on the screen.
I knew this was coming.
The coincidences were piling up. ‘Pet’, ‘Edie’, the hair… But I couldn’t accept it. I couldn’t even think it.
Yet here is hard, undeniable evidence.
A photo.
“Here is a photo of Edie at sixteen,” the reporter says, “taken a few months after she was rescued from her abuser’s mansion and reunited with her family. Her hair at this point was still dyed black. She would be checked into a mental health facility a few days later, out of which facility she emerged a healthy young woman. Her psychologists and the entire world, myself included, are all in complete awe of her strength and resilience.”
I am no longer listening.
After the photo popped up and the world ‘Edie at sixteen’ left his lips, I stopped listening.
I think I might just have stopped existing.
I look at the photo on the screen and I don’t breathe. At all.
The photo shows the face of a girl, her cheeks ghostly pale, her eyes empty, straight black hair trailing to her waist. She’s wearing a designer oversized sweater, and her thin arms are wrapped around her knees as if she’s struggling to keep all her shattered pieces together. There’s the blurry outline of a forest behind her, and underneath the photo, it says ‘Edie, 15, Amherst, Mass.’
It’s Eden as she looked the day I met her.
The forest behind her is no random forest. It’s the woods at the back of my school where she and I—
