Right after our daughter’s funeral, my husband insistently urged me to throw out her things, and when I started cleaning her room, I found a strange note: “Mom, if you’re reading this, it means I’m no longer alive. Just look under the bed.” 😱

When I looked under the bed, I was horrified by what I saw. 😢😨

Right after our daughter’s funeral, my husband told me we needed to clean her room and get rid of all her things. She was only 15 years old. Our only daughter.

After the funeral, I remembered almost nothing. I only remember the white coffin and the feeling that everything inside me had d:ied. People were saying things, hugging me, offering their condolences, but I didn’t hear them. I just stood there and stared into space.

At home, my husband kept repeating the same thing:

“These things need to be thrown out. They’re just tormenting us. We need to move on.”

I didn’t understand how he could say such things. These weren’t just things. It was her. Her clothes, her scent, her room. I felt like if I threw it all away, I’d be betraying my own child.

I resisted for a long time. I didn’t go into her room for almost a month. I’d just walk past the closed door and couldn’t bring myself to open it.

But one day, I finally decided.

When I opened the door, it felt like time had stood still. Everything was just as she’d left it. The bedspread on the bed, the notebooks on the table, the faint scent of her perfume in the air.

I began to clean slowly. I picked up each thing and cried. Her dress. Her hair ties. The book she’d reread several times. I clutched it all to my chest and couldn’t let go.

And suddenly, a small folded piece of paper fell out of one of the textbooks.

I immediately recognized her handwriting. My hands shook.

The note read: “Mom, if you’re reading this, look under the bed. Then you’ll understand everything.”

My breath caught in my throat. I reread those words several times. My heart was pounding as if it wanted to burst out of my chest. What could she have left there? And why should I understand anything?

I hesitated for a long time. I just stood in the middle of the room, clutching the note in my hand.

Then I knelt down and looked under the bed… 😢😱

There was an old shoebox there. I knew for sure it hadn’t been there before. My heart pounded harder. I pulled the box out and set it in front of me.

Inside were things that didn’t belong to her. Not hers. Men’s. A belt, a watch with a cracked glass, and a flash drive. Everything was neatly folded, as if she’d hidden it on purpose for me to find.

I took the flash drive and sat there for a long time, hesitating to turn on the laptop. When the video opened, my hands began to shake. Our daughter was on the screen. She was sitting in her room, speaking quietly, as if afraid to be heard. She was crying and kept looking around.

“Mom, if you’re watching this, it means I’m gone,” she said. “Please believe me. I didn’t fall. It wasn’t an accident.”

I covered my mouth with my hand to keep from screaming.

She told me she’d had a huge fight with her father that evening. She wanted to tell me the truth, but she didn’t have the chance. She said she was afraid of him, that he’d forbidden her to tell anyone anything and had threatened her.

Then she showed me the bruise on her arm and said he’d done it. The video ended.

I sat on the floor of her room, unable to breathe. Everything was a jumble in my head. All the strange moments of the last few months suddenly came together to form one terrifying image.

I remembered how my husband insisted that we get rid of her things as quickly as possible. How he wouldn’t let me enter her room. How, right after the funeral, he told me I needed to move on.

He knew everything. And that’s exactly why he wanted me to find nothing.

I peered into the box again. There was another note at the bottom. A short one.

“Mom, if you find this, don’t believe him. Go to the police. He’s dangerous.”

At that moment, I realized: I no longer had a choice.

Either I protect my daughter’s memory and tell the truth, or I live the rest of my life next to the man who destroyed our family and hoped he’d get away with it.