Chapter 3 - EPISODES ONE THROUGH THREE
Lily stopped looking at me.
She stared at the yellow hat in her lap.
“I don’t like it.”
“The hat?”
She nodded.
“Why?”
“Aunt Vanessa makes me wear it when I’m bad.”
My throat tightened.
“What does ‘bad’ mean?”
“When people pick.”
“Pick what?”
“What happens.”
I closed my eyes.
The livestream wasn’t random.
The viewers were choosing punishments.
I opened Episode 1.
The date was five weeks earlier.
Vanessa sat at the beauty table with Lily standing beside her.
The yellow hat was on Lily’s head.
Vanessa told the camera my daughter had been “showing off” because I bought her new light-up sneakers.
Viewers voted.
One option won.
DIRTY THEM.
The video showed Vanessa pouring chocolate syrup across the white parts of Lily’s sneakers.
Lily cried.
Vanessa laughed.
I remembered that day.
Lily told me she had stepped in something outside.
I cleaned the shoes myself.
Vanessa had been standing ten feet away when she told me children were careless.
Episode 2 was worse.
Lily had brought home a drawing from preschool.
A picture of the two of us holding hands beneath a crooked blue sky.
I had taped it to the refrigerator.
Two days later, it disappeared.
Vanessa told me Lily probably moved it.
The livestream showed what actually happened.
Vanessa held the drawing in front of the camera.
“She thinks Daddy keeps everything she makes.”
Comments appeared.
TEAR IT.
Another viewer wrote:
MAKE HER DO IT.
Lily refused.
Vanessa threatened to tell me she had hit another child at school.
That never happened.
My daughter finally tore the picture in half while crying.
Vanessa collected $213.
I paused the video.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Lily rubbed her eyes.
“She said you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Why?”
“She said grown-ups believe grown-ups.”
I felt sick.
Because Vanessa had understood something painfully simple.
Children depend on adults to believe them.
And she had weaponized that dependence.
Episode 3 had been recorded twelve days earlier.
Vanessa placed Lily’s favorite stuffed rabbit on the table.
A toy she had slept with since she was two.
The viewers chose whether Vanessa should hide it for one day, one week, or throw it away.
The winning option was one week.
Vanessa locked the rabbit inside a kitchen cabinet.
Lily cried so hard she hiccupped.
I remembered searching the entire house that night.
Vanessa helped me.
She opened closets.
Checked beneath beds.
Pretended to care.
The following week, the rabbit mysteriously reappeared.
Vanessa told Lily she was lucky.
I stopped the video.
I couldn’t continue.
Every memory of the past month rearranged itself.
Lily becoming quieter whenever Vanessa visited.
The stomachaches.
The sudden refusal to sleep alone.
The way she asked me whether “being proud” was rude.
I had thought she was adjusting to preschool.
She had been trying to survive an adult I trusted.
Vanessa stopped pounding on the bedroom door.
The silence worried me more.
I checked the tablet battery.
Sixty-three percent.
Wi-Fi connected.
I turned on airplane mode immediately.
Then I began recording the screen with my phone.
Every video.
Every payment total.
Every visible username.
Every comment.
I uploaded copies from my phone to a protected work account Vanessa did not know existed.
Lily watched me.
“What are you doing?”
“Making sure nobody can pretend this didn’t happen.”
Her face changed.
A little relief.
Then she whispered, “She has videos of you too.”
I stopped.
“Me?”
Lily nodded.
“When you get mad.”
My stomach tightened.
“What videos?”
“She says people like when you yell.”
I looked back at the tablet.
There was another folder beneath the yellow-hat episodes.
Not labeled Lily.
Labeled DAD.
I opened it.
Thirty-two clips.
Me raising my voice.
Me arguing with Vanessa.
Me slamming a cabinet after a bad day.
Me telling Lily to get into the car when we were late.
Ordinary moments cut into short fragments that made me look angry, impatient, unstable.
The newest file had been created less than ten minutes ago.
Thumbnail:
Me slapping Vanessa.
Filename:
May you like
DAD_LOSES_CONTROL_FINAL.
📖 Find out why Vanessa had been secretly collecting clips of me for months—and what she planned to do with the video of me slapping her in CHAPTER 4. 👇
