Chapter 3

For three days straight, I forced myself to eat.

Even when my stomach heaved, I swallowed everything down and choked back the nausea.

Every noon and every night, I lay obediently in bed.

Even when my heart clawed with impatience and sleep wouldn't come, I closed my eyes and pretended.

Finally, three days later, Rolf Harding came back.

When he heard Mrs. Dickerson's report on how I'd behaved, he was very pleased.

"Go see Chad this afternoon. Remember, you get two hours. You know what happens if you're late."

I nodded hard and promised to be back on time.

I barely made it to the hour I could leave, and under Mrs. Dickerson's watchful escort, I finally walked out the doors of the old estate.

While we waited for the elevator at the hospital, Mrs. Dickerson got a call from her daughter, Assistant Dickerson.

"Mom, the gown I'm wearing to the reception has a matching wrap. I left it at the Harding house. Bring it to me."

Mrs. Dickerson lowered her voice and refused.

"I can't. I'm watching Leonora at the hospital. I can't leave."

Assistant Dickerson couldn't have cared less.

"Her belly's out to here, like she's carrying a watermelon. She can barely walk. And that vegetable of a brother is lying in a hospital bed, only alive because of Mr. Harding's money. Where's a gold-digging bar girl going to run off to?"

"Go get my wrap. Tonight's reception matters. Mr. Harding's elders will be there, and I need to make a good impression if I'm going to marry into money."

Mrs. Dickerson snarled a few warnings at me, then had the driver take her back.

I pushed open the door to the hospital room alone, and found nothing but an empty room.

My heart skipped a few beats.

I stumbled to the nurses' station, where they gave me the news.

My brother, Chad Pruitt, had taken a turn for the worse two nights ago and stopped breathing.

In the nurse's grumbling, I heard it: Chad had had a chance.

But Rolf Harding had chosen to stop the treatment.

I had no heart to press it just then. The truth was I couldn't believe Chad was gone.

When I heard Chad had already been taken to the crematorium, I ignored the cramping in my belly and hailed a cab straight there.

……

When I saw Chad again, all that was left of him was a handful of ash.

I couldn't believe any of it.

My twin brother, the only person I had in the world, after seven years in a coma, had left me all the same.

For me, he'd been willing to give up his whole future.

Years ago, our parents' business had failed and buried them in debt, and then a single accident took both their lives.

It left just my brother and me, leaning on each other, studying and paying off the debt at the same time.

In the end the creditors made a scene at the university, and it caused a lot of trouble.

It was Chad who offered to drop out.

"Don't cry, sis. I'll work and pay off the debt, and I'll cover your living expenses too. You just focus on your studies. We'll split the work, and we'll get through this!"

I fought him hard on it back then.

My grades were good, but Chad had always been just a step ahead of me.

I wanted to leave the chance to study to him.

"No way. You're a girl. Without a degree there's only so much you can do out there. I'm a guy. Even without a degree I've got a strong back, so I've got way more options than you!"

And just like that, not long after he'd started, Chad walked away from the university.

Who could have known that a car accident afterward would leave him in a deep coma.

That one time he lay down, it turned into seven years.

I fought down the emotions I couldn't control and asked to see the cremation form and its signature.

I wanted to know who had handled Chad's final arrangements.

Just then, a middle-aged man walked over.

"I signed the cremation form."

I looked up. It was Lewis Donaldson, my mentor.

Only then did I learn that two days ago, Professor Donaldson had finally tracked down where Chad was, all in his search for me.

But he'd only arrived in time for Chad to be pronounced dead after the resuscitation failed.

Since he couldn't reach me or Rolf Harding, Professor Donaldson had handled the arrangements as next of kin.

"I've been looking for you for four years. How did you end up in Ashford?"

I held Chad's urn, a thousand things caught in my throat, and couldn't get out a single word.

Beyond the corridor windows, wind and rain raged.

Professor Donaldson's low voice was full of regret.

"You didn't show up that fall for the start of term. I got everyone I could to search for you."

"I even had your graduate spot held over for two more years. But there was never any word from you……"

Hearing that, a wave of dizziness swept over me.

In the daze, my throat went so dry it felt like it might split, and all I got out was one sentence.

"Back then, I got in?"

And then I passed out.

……