Chapter 2

By the time I dragged myself home, my face had gone bone-white.

The heat was cranked all the way up, and warmth folded over me the moment I stepped inside.

I shivered anyway.

By the sofa, Mom was helping Marcia Sullivan arrange flowers. She frowned over at me.

"Why are you soaked through?"

My heart was pounding. I gathered every scrap of strength I had and forced out a smile.

"I'll wipe up the water on the floor in a bit, so Marcie doesn't slip on it."

"What are you smiling like that for? You think your mother can't tell the difference between that and a real smile? Enough. Stop putting on an act. It's an eyesore."

My mouth opened, but not a single word made it out of my throat.

Marcia tugged at her sleeve and said softly,

"Mom, where should this flower go?"

Mom turned back at once, her whole face melting into fondness. "Come here, let me show you, Marcie."

I clutched the clear plastic bag tighter.

Everything inside it was in plain view.

But the mother who used to dig out ointment the instant I got scalded by a little porridge didn't so much as glance at it.

I hauled my exhausted body up the stairs, breath coming in ragged gasps.

Out of the corner of my eye I still caught the happy little scene, the "mother and daughter" leaning close together, and my hand went to my chest before I could stop it.

The tears I'd cried dry on the way home welled up again, and a few more squeezed loose.

Mom, Margery really hurts.

The light in the little attic was broken. I'd asked the butler to fix it a few times, and every time he'd put me off.

After a while I understood this was part of the punishment too, so I stopped bringing it up.

By the moonlight I peeled the fabric away from where it had stuck to the wound, and I dropped to the floor, teeth bared against the pain.

From outside came Dad's low growl.

"It's this late and you're still banging around on the floor. What if you wake Marcie?"

"You're a grown woman and you still can't learn to behave!"

I sucked in a breath. I didn't have the strength left to answer.

Footsteps came pattering up the stairs, and then a knock at the door.

"Margery, say something!"

"Your manners get worse and worse. Now you won't even answer when an elder speaks to you."

I looked down at the wound across my stomach. I truly didn't have the strength to struggle to my feet and open the door.

"If you don't come out, I'm coming in."

Coming in would be fine, too.

I couldn't help imagining it, the look on Dad's face when he saw a cut this long.

The handle clicked as it turned.

Just as Dad was about to push the door open, Marcia's voice called up from downstairs.

"Dad, come down and see the flowers Mom and I did together!"

"I want to give them to Lance. Do you think he'll like them?"

The door creaked open a crack, and the voices outside came through clearer.

Dad's footsteps retreated, along with his fond, doting laugh.

"When has our Marcie ever given that boy anything he didn't like?"

I stared up at the ceiling and thought quietly:

Lance is allergic to pollen. He won't like them.

That was why, all these years, he never once gave me fresh flowers.

It was always garish fake ones.

Until the last time, when he threw the fake flowers at me and laughed, mocking.

"A fake heiress with fake flowers. Perfect match. No wonder you never let me give you real ones all these years. Turns out you knew exactly what you were."

Once the pain went numb, I could finally brace myself against the wall, sit up, and treat the wound.

My hand brushed my phone by accident and opened the notification I'd set to alert me.

It was a short video from Mom's public account.

It already had a few thousand likes.

Comments jumped onto the screen one after another.

"Getting shaken awake by a message from my boss telling me to go like this. She's been back three years and they still spoil her this much. I'm genuinely jealous."

"You mean the CEO couple who are always in the papers getting interviewed personally recorded a hand-dance for us? Marcie, you're the only connection I've got to the power-couple world. I'm your ride-or-die fan."

"That other one never had a single photo posted with them. Guess the real daughter really does get treated differently."

I wanted to reply and say it wasn't like that.

That in the past Mom and Dad hadn't wanted me shown in public because they loved me, because they were thinking of my safety.

But then I remembered that all along, from the very start, they knew I was the real daughter. And suddenly those words of protest wouldn't come.

While I was outside with strangers threatening my life and my honor, Mom and Dad were in a warm house recording a hand-dance with Marcia.

While I dragged my nearly broken body home through the rain, Mom was upset that Marcia's video numbers were low and rallying the whole company to go like it.

I could no longer tell whether I had ever really been loved. But in that moment, the grief was real.