Prologue

On my first birthday after being reclaimed by my birth parents and brought into the James family, I spent fifty cents on a slice of cake scraps for myself.

After I donated bone marrow to my younger sister, Aileen James, the pain never left me.

I made one last wish by the light of a single candle. Then the agony tore through me again, bone-deep and blinding. I curled up against the corner of the table to wait it out, and I never woke up.

When my pulse stopped, the room went dark.

Mom came through the door holding Aileen's hand.

She spotted me crumpled against the table leg. Her brow furrowed, and the joy on her face curdled into a thin layer of anger. She didn't scold me, though. She just set the three-tiered cake she was carrying down on the table.

That was Aileen's birthday cake.

"Is there no bed in this house? Lying on the floor like that—what do you look like? Get back to your room."

Aileen bit her lip, her eyes rimming red. "Mom, don't yell at her. She's always resented me for stealing you and Dad away from her. Maybe I should just... leave."

Mom pulled her into her arms, stroking her hair, murmuring comfort.

"Ally, you will always be our most loved child. Don't ever say that again. This is all Eudora James's fault. She's just petty."

I lay curled on the cold floor, the sound of her deep, tender love for another child and her curses at me ringing in my ears.

A week later, every last pretense was shattered.

...

I was still slumped against the table, a smear of frosting on the corner of my mouth.

The gentle way Mom comforted Aileen—it was as if Aileen were her biological daughter.

But when she glanced back and noticed the cake scraps, her expression darkened instantly, like she'd spotted something filthy.

Those scraps were the birthday cake I'd bought for myself. The only one I could afford.

She muttered under her breath, "What a waste. Spending money on garbage even a dog wouldn't touch."

But when her gaze happened to fall on me, curled up against the table, something flickered across her chest—a faint, barely perceptible ache.

Without thinking, she slowly loosened her arm from around Aileen. She took one step toward me. Then another.

She bent down slightly, reaching to help me up.

But just then, Aileen let out a soft, choked sob.

Mom hesitated. Then she turned on her heel and hurried back to Aileen's side.

She wiped the tears from Aileen's face with gentle fingers.

"Ally, what's wrong?"

"Can you tell me?"

I drifted nearby, listening to their conversation. The ache threaded through my bones again, sharp as needles.

Then Aileen's gaze suddenly shifted toward where I was.

She pressed her face into Mom's shoulder, her voice thick with tears:

"Mom, she's glaring at me! I'm so scared!"

I listened in silence as she sobbed about things I had never done.

Aileen's eyes brimmed with tears, her body trembling, the picture of a girl too timid to speak up.

"Mom, I'm a little cold... could I wear your jacket? I'm afraid she'll get angry. She doesn't let me wear her mother's clothes."

Mom turned immediately and went to the bedroom to get her jacket.

The room emptied to just the two of us.

Aileen glanced at me, slumped against the table. The corner of her mouth curled upward. She turned and picked up the cake from the table.

The next second, she hurled it to the floor. Because she and I shared the same birthday.

Then she lifted her foot and ground it down, hard.

That still wasn't enough.

She raised her hand and rapped her knuckles against the wall, her eyes cold and calculating as they flicked toward me. Then, with a sharp crack, she slammed her forehead into the wall.

Bright red blood streaked down from her hairline, dripping onto the floor one drop at a time.

"No! Stop!"

She screamed, crumpled to the ground, and pressed both hands tight against her forehead.

The bedroom door swung open, and Mom hurried over to Aileen. "Ally, what happened?"

Aileen kept her head down. Blood seeped slowly through the gaps between her fingers, trailing down her entire arm.

She pulled her hand away from her forehead, revealing the wound where she'd struck herself. Her voice cracked with a sob.

"Mom, I just wanted to share the cake with Eudora, but she... she told me to get lost. She threw the cake on the floor and... and pushed me."

Mom's jaw tightened instantly.

She looked down at the frosting smeared across the floor, then glanced sideways at me, curled up in the corner by the table, not saying a word.

The sliver of concern on her face dissolved into fury. She raised her voice.

"Eudora!"

"Ally was kind enough to share her birthday cake with you, and this is how you act? Who exactly are you putting on that attitude for?"

I couldn't speak.

Beside her, Aileen suddenly shivered, as though startled, and slowly reached up to tug at the hem of Mom's sleeve. "Mom, my head feels so dizzy. Am I going to die?"

Mom pressed her hand to Aileen's forehead, her tone turning impossibly soft. "Ally, don't say such things! Today is your—"

She paused.

She glanced back at me, at my pale face, then turned back and spoke in a gentle murmur. "Ally, Mommy's taking you to the hospital right now. Everything's going to be fine."

Before leaving, she pulled a cash gift envelope from her purse and set it on the table.

She hesitated for a moment, then reached out and slipped a key into her own pocket.

"I'm taking the key. When you've learned to behave, you can go outside."

By the end of her sentence, her voice held nothing but impatience.

"And stop dressing like such a mess. People would think I'm abusing you."

The words barely left her lips before she steadied Aileen and walked out.

As she pulled the door shut, her hand paused on the handle. She seemed about to say something more to me.

But just as she opened her mouth, Aileen clutched her forehead, her body tilting backward.

"Mom, my head... it hurts so much. I don't think I can stand."

Mom's attention snapped back to her in an instant.

She wrapped an arm around Aileen, gently brushed the hair from her face, and examined the wound carefully.

"You're okay, Ally. Mommy already called 911. We're going to the hospital right now."

The door slammed shut with a bang, the overhead light swaying from the force.

The house was mine alone again.

The cake that had been knocked to the floor lay there just like me, dying in silence.

I followed them without a sound, watching as they climbed into the ambulance.

Mom patted Aileen's back, soothing her, her hands never stopping.

Aileen burrowed into Mom's arms, nuzzling her face against her chest, hair falling in messy strands across both cheeks.

One of the paramedics chuckled, a note of admiration in his voice.

"You two have such a wonderful bond!"

Mom smiled along and lifted a hand to rub the little head that had already tunneled beneath her collar.

Back at the house, a draft crept through the gap beneath the door. The candle flame flickered once, then went out.

I lay curled against the table leg, my body growing stiff.

At the hospital, Aileen had just finished getting her wound bandaged when something in her pocket stung her hand.

She pulled out the photograph and looked at it. Her pupils contracted sharply.

Her whole body slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor.

Her eyes turned red in an instant, fat tears splashing against the tile.

Her lips trembled violently as she held the photograph out to Mom.

"Mom... Eudora, she... she shoved a photo at me."

"On the back it says if I ever dare call you 'Mom' again, she'll strangle me with a rope."

Mom's face darkened.

She snatched the photograph from Aileen's hand.

On the back, in handwriting I knew better than anyone, were the words.

That note was written by me while Aileen held a knife to my throat.

"Aileen, if you dare call her 'Mom' one more time, when you come home, I'll strangle you with a rope, chop you into pieces, and feed you to the dogs."

Mom kicked over the trash can beside her. Garbage spilled across the floor.

She dialed my number immediately, the vein at her temple throbbing.

One call after another. Every single one met with the same robotic voicemail prompt. Mom laughed from sheer fury, her chest heaving.

"Fine, Eudora. You've really grown bold!"

"You had the nerve to write something like this, and now you're pulling the silent treatment? Trying to make me feel guilty? Trying to make me worry?"

Beside her, Aileen tugged gently at her sleeve, her voice trembling.

"Mom, I'm so scared... She wouldn't really strangle me, would she? It's all my fault. Please don't blame her. Maybe... maybe I should just leave home. Once I'm gone, she'll calm down, and you won't be stuck in the middle anymore."

Mom looked at Aileen, cowering and self-sacrificing at her side, then glanced up at the strangers whispering around them.

All that remained in her heart was bottomless irritation and rage.

And in that moment, she made the decision that would jolt her awake in the middle of the night for the rest of her life.

"We're not going home tonight."

"She loves that house so much? Then let her stay in it by herself!"

She helped Aileen to her feet.

"We'll go to the Pinecrest Hot Springs Resort. If we leave now, we'll get there in time to celebrate your birthday. Let her sit at home and think about what she's done. Once she's come to her senses, we can talk about cutting ties for good."

She flicked on the turn signal. The car merged onto the highway heading out of the city, its taillights shrinking into the darkness, farther and farther from home.

In the house, only the ticking of the clock remained.

The phone that had been vibrating over and over was trapped beneath my body.

It buzzed against the hardwood floor, a muffled hum like some futile cry no one could hear.

The lit screen showed multiple missed calls from Mom.

The newest notification was a text message from her.

"Eudora, don't think sharing my blood gives you the right to do whatever you want. Ally is the only daughter I've ever truly claimed!"

"Stay home and reflect on what you've done. Don't you dare bother me while I'm celebrating Ally's birthday!"

In the days that followed, I did not bother them.

She assumed her threat had worked.

What she didn't know was this:

While she was soaking in hot springs and cutting birthday cake with Aileen, I was curled on the cold floor, slowly beginning to rot.

At the Pinecrest Hot Springs Resort, the air conditioning was set low, and beyond the windows stretched the vast open sea.

But Mom seemed distracted.

A strange tightness pressed against her chest, an unease she couldn't name, making it impossible to sit still.

She tapped her phone screen awake. Her finger drifted instinctively to the home security app, wanting to check on me, to see what I was doing.

But then she remembered that photograph covered in vicious words, and the text message I'd never answered. Her brow furrowed, and she shoved the phone back into her purse.

Aileen was a master at playing the victim.

To squeeze a little more sympathy out of Mom, she deliberately crashed into the pool wall while swimming that evening, leaving a sprawl of bruises across her shoulder.

"Mom, my shoulder hurts so bad. I can't move it."

Mom had no choice but to wrap an arm around her waist and walk her back to the room, one slow step at a time.

They passed a little boy holding both his parents' hands. He called out loudly, "That lady loves her big sister the most! Just like Mommy loves me the most!"

Mom's steps faltered. She forced a smile that didn't quite hold.

The next second, she corrected him almost on instinct. "Sweetie, the person a mother loves most will always be her own child."

The words left her mouth, and she froze where she stood.