Chapter 3

Seeing that I wouldn't hold the pen, Roxy kicked me in the ribs out of frustration.

"Mom! Look at Hope! She’s still throwing a tantrum!"

Linda walked over and looked down at me.

My wide-open, lifeless eyes were staring right back at her.

She frowned. There was no panic on her face—only disgust.

"This girl has such a nasty temper. She really thinks she can blackmail us by pretending to pass out?"

"Ignore her. Starve her for a couple of meals, and she’ll crawl back."

Harold was even more direct. He grabbed me by my shirt and dragged me onto my bed.

Then, he picked up the pen from the floor and forged my signature on the Ivy League waiver.

"There. The spot is yours now," Harold said, handing the paper to Roxy. "Was this tiny thing really worth cutting yourself so many times?"

Looking at the signed document, Roxy jumped up and down in excitement.

She didn't care about the blood dripping down her arm.

"Thank you, Dad! I knew you loved me best!"

She grabbed a random band-aid from the counter and slapped it over the deep gash.

The blood quickly soaked through the adhesive, but she didn't care.

It didn't hurt anyway.

"To celebrate our Roxy getting into the Ivy League, let’s order a feast!" Linda declared, immediately ordering the most expensive seafood delivery on her phone.

Half an hour later.

The food arrived.

The dining table was piled high with King crab legs, lobsters, and oysters.

The table was in the living room.

Less than ten feet away from my dead body.

I floated above them, watching them stuff their faces.

The heavy, fishy smell of the seafood filled the air, slowly mixing with the faint, sweet scent of decay starting to rise from my corpse.

Roxy ate greedily, her lips slick with butter.

She cracked open a lobster claw and casually tossed the sharp shell backward.

*Clack.*

The shell landed right on my face, catching on my eyelashes.

It was a sick, ironic sight.

"Hey, Hope, stop faking."

"Get up and clean this trash. Don't think you can skip your chores just by lying there."

I didn't move.

I couldn't.

Linda peeled a piece of crab meat and fed it to Roxy.

"Don't worry about that useless girl. Just looking at her ruins my appetite."

"Our Roxy is the one with real guts. She knows how to be ruthless to get what she wants."

"Once you go to college, you’re going to do great things."

Harold drank his beer, his face flushing red from the alcohol.

He pointed a finger toward my bed. "We spoiled her too much. 'Pain empathy'? It’s probably just a mental illness. She just wanted attention."

"Look at Roxy. She bleeds and doesn't cry. That’s what a leader looks like."

They kept eating, laughing, and planning Roxy's bright future.

Not once did anyone walk over to check if I was breathing.

If they had just bent down, they might have realized I could still have been saved.

But they didn't.

They truly believed I was just playing a game, silent-treating them.

After finishing her meal, Roxy let out a loud burp.

She looked toward my bed and suddenly found it annoying.

"Mom, the way she’s lying there is creepy. Her eyes are wide open. It’s bad luck."

Linda stood up.

She went to the kitchen drawer, pulled out an old, stained tablecloth, and walked over.

Like throwing a tarp over a pile of garbage, she threw it over my head.

"Out of sight, out of mind."

"She sleeps on the floor tonight. Nobody give her a blanket. Let’s see how long she can keep up this act."

A dirty tablecloth.

It covered my unblinking, dead eyes.

And it covered the last shred of humanity in this house.

My soul shivered in the air.

Not from the cold, but from the absolute, freezing realization of how little I meant to them.