Maddy Perez doesn't call it abuse. She calls it love-because that's what Nate Jacobs taught her it was supposed to feel like. At East Highland, everything is the same: the looks, the whispers, the fights that echo through hallways and end in locked doors. Nate is control disguised as protection. He decides who Maddy talks to, what she wears, how she's allowed to exist. When he's angry, he hits her, both physically, but especially emotionally, and the world shrinks. When he's calm, he makes her b
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@lrakumyThe Outer Banks air is thick with salt and something else—the metallic tang of a summer storm brewing just offshore. Late afternoon light bleeds gold through the cracks between weather-beaten beach houses, casting long shadows across the winding road. A rental Hyundai idles at the curb, its engine humming softly.