Chapter 2
The next afternoon, Jessica came home from the hospital.
Her left hand was wrapped in thick bandages, her face pale, but her eyes burned with hatred.
The moment she saw me, she stormed over and snatched the music box from my hands. "Trash is all a monster like you deserves!" she sneered.
She raised it high and smashed it hard onto the floor.
With a sharp crack, it splintered into fragments.
The spring shot out and rolled far across the floor.
The delicate little ballerina inside snapped clean in two.
I just stared at the shattered pieces on the ground. I didn't cry or say a word. I just crouched down.
I picked up the fragments one by one with my bare hands.
The jagged shards cut into my fingers, and blood started dripping onto the floor.
I didn't stop. I just kept picking them up.
"She's crazy. She's completely insane!" Jessica screamed.
Mom tried to drag me away, but then she saw blood running down my fingers.
As she tugged at my arm, my sleeve slid up, exposing a horrifying array of scars all over my thin arms.
There were cuts. Bite marks. Cigarette burns. Every kind of wound you could think of.
They were everywhere. So many that it made you dizzy to look.
Mom gasped, "What are these?"
Dad saw them too. "Get her to the hospital, now!"
The diagnosis hit everyone like a blow.
"She's completely lost the ability to feel pain, and her emotional responses are badly damaged," the doctor announced.
"Cases like this are almost unheard of. It usually requires truly profound trauma," he added.
He studied my scans, his face darkening.
"Her nervous system has been altered. Someone deliberately severed the nerves that register pain," he said grimly.
Mom fainted before he could even finish speaking.
Dad's voice shook. "Who would do something like this to a child?"
The doctor shook his head. "In 30 years of practice, I have never seen anything so deliberately cruel."
"How did this child even survive? It's nothing short of a miracle," the doctor added.
I sat on the hospital bed, quietly listening to their conversation.
My fingers were already bandaged, but I felt nothing.
Back home that night, I put the shattered pieces of the music box into a small box.
Jessica saw me and smirked, her eyes full of smug satisfaction. "Still trying to fix it? Don't bother."
"That junk should've been thrown out ages ago," she sneered.
I didn't say a word. I just kept quietly sorting through the fragments.
*****
The next morning, news had spread at school about Jessica being in the hospital.
Michael came home with a stormy look on his face and cornered me. "This is all because of you. You almost killed her."
He held a cup of hot coffee, his eyes icy. "Don't you feel anything?"
He didn't buy the doctor's diagnosis. He thought I was just putting on an act. "I don't believe you're some kind of monster. You must be faking it."
He poured the scalding coffee right onto the back of my hand.
The steaming liquid—nearly boiling—instantly reddened my skin.
Blisters popped up in seconds, and the skin started to peel away.
I just looked down at my hand. I didn't move.
I didn't even flinch.
Michael's expression shifted—from anger, to shock, to pure fear.
"You... you really can't feel it?" he stammered.
I met his gaze, totally calm. "No."
The word hit him harder than any scream ever could.
He shoved me, totally losing control. "What's wrong with you? No one is like this. You're not my sister!"
I fell, my forehead hitting the sharp corner of the table.
Blood trickled down my cheek.
I didn't cry or make a sound. I just quietly pushed myself up.
I wiped the blood off my face and just kept looking at him.
That broke him. Finally, completely. He grabbed the ashtray off the table and swung it at me, his eyes wild and desperate.