Chapter 2

When I was in ninth grade, Estella ripped that jealousy out of me and put it on display for the world to see.

Emily had stolen Estella's diamond ring to show off at school and lost it.

When Estella found out, she didn't even ask what happened. She just decided I was the "scheming" one who had put Emily up to it.

She tore my room apart and found my diary, the one I kept locked. Inside, I had poured out all my resentment, all my secret, ugly feelings about Emily.

She threw the diary on the floor in front of the entire family.

She yelled, "Sophie, how could I have raised such a vicious, dark-hearted child like you?

"Your sister is so innocent and kind. And you? How can you be so full of hate at such a young age?

"You're jealous of her, aren't you? What right do you have to be jealous of her?"

The words "vicious and dark-hearted" were a brand, seared into my fifteen-year-old heart.

From that day on, I closed a door inside myself and never opened it again. I stopped hoping. I stopped asking. I stopped trying.

My phone buzzed. It was my father, Billy Lane. I took a deep breath and answered.

"Sophie..." he began, his usual opening. "You know your mother. Her bark is worse than her bite. Don't take it to heart.

"And your sister... She's just spoiled. She doesn't mean any harm.

"I sent you two thousand dollars. Use it for your tuition so that you don't get behind."

Billy had always been the family's designated peacemaker.

He would be the one to slip me thirty bucks after Estella yelled at me. He was the one to silently push my favorite dish toward me at the dinner table.

That two thousand dollars, just like those secret kindnesses, was the only proof I had that I wasn't completely alone in this desolate house. They were the flimsy raft I was clinging to in a world of ice.

My throat tightened. I was about to say thank you when he changed his tune.

"By the way, you should call your sister and apologize.

"She's been crying all afternoon. She's worried your leaving the group chat means you don't want her as a sister anymore.

"She's so sensitive, Sophie. Can't you, as the older sister, just let it go?"

I sneered.

The money wasn't an apology. It was a bribe to placate my "sensitive" sister.

The flicker of warmth I had felt moments before turned to ice.

"Sensitive?" I said into the phone with a snort. "Is she so sensitive that she knew Mom froze my account, yet she still offered me two hundred dollars just to humiliate me?

"Dad, aren't the three of you tired of this performance?"

I hung up and immediately sent the money back. A curt line was attached: [I don't need your money.]

Rage, hurt, and a bitter sense of injustice churned in my stomach.

Why? What had I done that was so wrong? All I had ever wanted was a small piece of their love, even just a sliver of what they gave Emily. But all I ever got were the scraps.

I started to wonder if I was even their child at all.

I opened my laptop and frantically searched for part-time work, including tutoring, freelance design, and even a job at a coffee shop. I was done with their charity. I would make it on my own.

The next few days, I ran myself into the ground. I became a machine. My days were a monotonous cycle of lectures and textbooks, but my nights were a grueling rotation of three different part-time jobs.

I took a freelance design job from an upperclassman, redoing a logo twenty times, waking up at 3 a.m. to make revisions.

I tutored a high school kid in math three times a week, a three-hour round trip on the subway each time.

I worked shifts at a coffee shop near campus, bussing tables and washing dishes until the bitter smell of coffee clung to my clothes.

I was a spinning top, fueled by cheap instant coffee and four hours of sleep a night.

My roommates said I was insane because I was obsessed with money.

They didn't understand. I was earning my freedom.

I never wanted to have to beg for their money again.

I craved a space that was truly my own, even if it was just a tiny room with a bed and a desk.

My current room at home was just a storage unit for my family's junk.

According to Estella, all of it was "sacred." "They're cherished memories," she lectured if I even suggested clearing a space. "You don't just toss memories in the trash."

But ninety percent of those so-called memories belonged to Emily. Her childhood toys were piled in dusty boxes. A mountain of her awards and trophies gleamed from every surface. Stacks upon stacks of clothes she had long since outgrown filled the closet.

But my entire existence in that house could be packed into the single, small suitcase pushed into a forgotten corner.

One day, I finally had enough for my tuition. That same day, I received a notice that I had been shortlisted for an international design competition.

For the first time in a long time, I posted on social media.

The caption read: [A new beginning.]

A few minutes later, Estella liked the post. A few minutes after that, she left a comment: [So proud of you, Sophie.]

Then, she sent a text message: [Are you coming home next weekend? It's your grandpa's 70th birthday.]

Just mentioning Troy made my gut twist. I clutched my phone, my thumb tracing the screen.

My mind kept circling back to his birthday. What could I possibly get him?

I had a state-of-the-art massage chair sitting in my online shopping cart.

Troy had mentioned his back was acting up, a casualty of his years as a carpenter.

Was this Estella's way of apologizing?

I took a deep breath and texted back: [I'll check my schedule.]

She didn't reply.

I knew her well enough to know that was the closest she would ever get to admitting she was wrong.

But she didn't know that the person in the family who had inherited her stubbornness was me.

In the end, I went home.

I used my part-time earnings to buy the massage chair and had it shipped directly to Troy's house.

I endured eighteen agonizing hours on a Greyhound bus, crammed into a seat that barely reclined, all to save the money a last-minute plane ticket would have cost.

My mind raced, rehearsing conversations that would never happen. What would I even say to my grandfather and my parents? But then a stupid thought slipped through. Maybe, just maybe, his birthday could be a chance to reconcile.

But when I arrived at Troy's old house in the countryside, the door was locked.

A cold dread crept up my spine.