Call It What You Want To

Epilogue

ONE YEAR LATER

Dear Mom and Dad,

I don't care if you read this or not, but my therapist said I needed to write a letter to you. I might not even mail it if she doesn't make me.

I'm supposed to tell you about everything that's been going on in my life, and I think it's supposed to make you feel bad about everything that you guys are missing out on because you were shitty parents. You should feel shitty though, because you are, and you are missing out on everything.

Honestly, life is so much better when you aren't being coached from behind a camera lens. I can say what I want and when I want to say it, I don't have to repeat myself a million times to "get the right angle", and I get to be myself without wondering what other people think about me.

It's pretty great, and I can't believe that you spent years trying to convince me otherwise.

Anyways, we're all doing fine without you, better than fine actually.

I'm fourteen now, and Declan's seven. He'll be eight in a few weeks and Aunt Lauren and Uncle Brock said that we're gonna surprise him with a family trip to Disney before school starts. Everyone's gonna go, even Kyler and Taya's gonna come too.

I know you probably don't care about Kyler, but I'm gonna tell you about what she's doing just to piss you off even more! Feel free to skip if you really don't care, but just so you know that makes you even shittier parents.

Kyler and Taya still live together in their condo about an hour away, I don't know if she told you about that at your "meeting" with her. Kyler works for the Indiana Historical Society and she's getting rich and famous off the stuff that she did all on her own. (No sponsorships or videos needed.) Aunt Lauren's taken Asher, Jaycee, Dec, and I to the museum she works with a couple times and it's so freaking cool. I've also gotten to see where Taya works at the police station. She's doing some sort of investigative assistant thing while she's going to college to be a victim's advocate. She's gonna help people that went through stuff like what you put all of us through.

I've been to Kyler's house and I love it. You can tell that real people live there, and there's a lot of colors everywhere. It's so much better than the boring, "everything has to be white and pristine" thing you had going on. Oh, by the way, our old house got sold too. All the money got divided up between Ky, Dec, and I.

Kyler and Taya have two dogs, Maverick and Josie. Why couldn't we ever have a dog? I get to have a dog now though, Uncle Brock brought home a puppy he found at his job site a few months ago. She's black with white patches all over and we named her Winnie. She follows Asher and I around everywhere!

It's summer now, but when I go back to school I'm gonna be a freshman and I think I'm gonna tryout for basketball this year. I've gotten really tall and I'm fast now since I run with Uncle Brock in the mornings. Declan plays baseball with the town's little league and he's really good. He's fast too.

I know my therapist told me that I should tell you what's going on with my life, but I don't think you deserve to know more. You don't get to just know every little detail about my life, like how three million people did about us for almost six years.

You should know that I'm happy. Happier than I ever was before, no matter what I tried to convince myself of at the time. All of us are happier.

You should also know that I hate you. After the full investigation was done when you two were arrested, I found out everything. That's right, everything. Even those files and accounts that you didn't want us to know about. I hope you know that you're fucking sick and disgusting.

I hate you for what you did to me.

I hate you for kicking out my sister when I was younger, the only person who really was trying to protect me.

But what I really hate is that you tried to say that you weren't guilty of any of this. Saying that what you did "wasn't wrong".

It was.

And I hope you enjoy the next fifteen years in jail, sitting there and rotting away, realizing that what you did is so wrong.

And if you don't realize it, maybe try asking God, whom you claim to be a devoted follower of, if he would approve of what you did to all of us.

Sincerely, and no longer your daughter,

Milana

The End

Thank you for reading "Call It What You Want To".