Chapter 2

He zipped over and shoved his finger right in my face.

Then, just to keep up the rich guy act, he dropped his voice to a nasty whisper.

"Did your boss lose his mind? Sending a freak like you to work my daughter's party?

"You already scared one of our guests half to death. If someone takes one look at your ugly mug and has a heart attack, ten of you couldn't cover the damages."

My eyes got all teary right away.

But hey, the way I was now? That was what happened when you didn't check before you married, she lied about the family skeleton, and then you both bailed on the kid.

Zane panicked. He bent over even deeper.

"So sorry, Mr. Bennett. Totally on us.

"Our boss is just trying to score some good PR with that 'charity company' label, so he drags in all kinds of misfits to make himself look good.

"Let me take this eyesore back right now and knock some sense into him."

My dad glanced at me from the corner of his eye, couldn't help covering his nose, and nudged my mom.

"Good thing that little bastard's dead. Can you imagine if he wound up like that and was still breathing? We'd have nightmares every time we saw him.

"That's why I said cut him loose when we got the news. You got all soft and almost screwed us big time."

I had been used to my dad's crap for a long time.

Back when I was little, every time my mom doted on me, his eyes would shoot daggers.

"Why do you have to spoil him all the time? I'm your husband, remember?

"Put that energy into your daughter, and she'd be killing it by now."

I never got why he saw his own son as competition. But after that, we started living like we were broke.

My dad was all about that "suffering builds character" garbage. He always said you gotta go through hell to come out golden.

I think the plan was to tell us the truth at our coming of age party.

Too bad I had to trip and smash my face on the table that day, blood everywhere, all because of a stupid little cake.

The hospital said it was hereditary cerebellar atrophy.

And just like that, the truth slipped through my fingers.

Or maybe I just handed my dad another reason to hate my guts.

Zane saw I wasn't moving fast enough. He got pissed, grabbed my collar, and started dragging me on the floor.

The collar choked me until my face went purple. My messed-up hands flailed around. My mouth babbled nonsense. I probably looked even more like a monster.

My mom couldn't watch. She was about to step in, but my dad held her back.

"You still don't get it? Guys like him are better off six feet under.

"Hobbling around a fancy place like this? All they do is kill the vibe.

"Besides, this useless lump lives a life worse than a stray dog. Might as well put him out of his misery."

My dad snickered to himself. Then he fixed his suit and strolled back to the party to work the room for his daughter's future.

I clawed at my collar, my eyes practically popping out, watching everything go down. For the first time, I really got what it meant to be dead inside.

I had already bit the dust once. Did they really want me to go again?

At least my sister didn't have to see that ugly scene.

I looked at her giant picture by the door. Same bright smile from when we used to steal candy together.

Sis, lived my share of life too.