I used to think forgetting was the cruel part. 

I was wrong. 

Sometimes the blind spots are the mercy.

I don’t remember most of my childhood.  Not in any useful order.  Lucky me.

What I do remember tends to show up when it feels like it. A punishment here. A missing day there. Something my mother said that I didn’t realize was insane until years later.

You’ll get the point.

As far as Coen and the four years we spent inside Central City?  I don’t think I will need to rehash them for you to understand just how much he meant to me. 

Just know this.  Bickering was definitely part of our love language.

Anyways, tunnels.

Okay.  So, here’s the problem. 

We couldn’t just walk out the front door.  It required planning.  Escape routes.  Perfect timing. 

You see, my front door sat 485 stories above the ground and three blocks from any elevator.  The route between, peppered with digital eyes attached to a surveillance system known as P.A.N.^[1]

It had been designed that way. 

It kept me where I belonged and kept anyone who attempted to ‘kidnap’ me from doing so.

Theoretically.

My mother had it completed shortly after my eighteenth birthday.

And I fucked it all up —the plans to escape—the minute I pushed my button.  Because Coen had laid it all out, with the help of someone he refused to identify. 

^[1] P.A.N.  – Public Assurance Network

There are three things I know to be absolutely one hundred percent true.

One, there are gentler ways to find out your face was never yours. 

I assume.

Two, there are nicer ways to find out your entire life was a lie.

And three, I knew absolutely nothing at all.

Life taught me that, over and over again.

And while I reminisce about the how, I recall asking myself why.