So, I had carried the physical and emotional burden in absolute silence. I let her hate me, because her hatred meant she was sane. Her vanity meant she was alive.
“Okay, Chloe,” I whispered, clutching the neon fabric in my fist. “I’ll think about it.”
Chloe rolled her eyes, turning back to her flawless reflection. “Don’t think about it. Just do it. For once in your miserable life, try to be normal.”
I backed out of the bathroom, retreating down the carpeted hallway to the safety of my bedroom. I closed the door and locked it. The silence of my room was a heavy, oppressive blanket. I walked over to my desk, my eyes drifting down to the bottom drawer. It was locked. Inside, hidden beneath old notebooks, was a single, scorched photograph of our old house—a charred, blackened skeleton of wood and ash.
I stared at the drawer, my chest heaving with silent, agonizing breaths, knowing that maintaining my sister’s fragile sanity was slowly, inevitably costing me my own soul…
Chapter 2: The Poisoned Table
Three days before the party, the tension in our house had thickened into something almost physical, a toxic fog that settled over the dining room table.
My mother, Sarah, had spent the entire morning nervously polishing the silverware, her eyes darting toward me every time Chloe mentioned the upcoming pool party. My father, David, sat at the head of the table, cutting his steak with forced, mechanical precision. They were walking a psychological tightrope, terrified of triggering my anxiety, and equally terrified of awakening the dormant trauma buried inside Chloe’s brain.
