“I’m not here to help Melinda.”
“I’m here because she told me Elise ran away,” Howard explains. “She wanted my help, but I told herI’d look into it on my own. I’ve been thinking about Elise for… for a long time. I wondered whathappened to her. So I decided to find out.”
“How f*****g noble of you, ‘deciding to find out what happened’ to your own daughter.” I cross myarms over my chest. “You can’t see her.”
“What?” he breathes. “Belle, you can’t—”
“Actually, I can,” I interrupt. “Because I’m the person who has been looking out for her. I’m theperson who got her away from our useless mother. You’re just the asshole who left her there.”
“It… it wasn’t like that.”
“Then look me in my eyes and tell me that when you left you believed my mo
