Chapter 2

Upstairs, breakfast was still spread across the dining table. Bacon, maple pancakes, most of a glass of warm milk.

Colette was curled against Mom in a brand-new cashmere sweater.

"Mommy, I want macarons. The ones from that place on the east side."

"Okay, okay. I'll send your dad this afternoon." Mom stroked her hair.

Colette's cheeks were pink and her eyes were bright. Nobody looks like that an hour after a fever breaks.

But no one seemed to notice.

The second she saw me coming, the smile dropped off her face. She shrank back against Mom and her voice went small and thin.

"Nell... why are you looking at me like that?" Her eyes went red on cue. "I know you hate that my being sick drags you down. But I don't want to be sick either."

Mom's face went cold. She stood up and crossed the room in three steps.

The slap landed on my left cheek, hard enough to echo. I didn't have much strength to begin with, so I went straight down onto the floor. My ear rang for a good few seconds.

"Your sister can barely get out of bed, and you can't even feel sorry for her? You're glaring at her?" Mom pointed at my face. "Are you hoping she dies? Is that it? So you can have this whole family to yourself?"

"I wasn't—"

"Still talking back?" Dad came in from the living room and looked me up and down. "Look at yourself. Hair falling out everywhere, face white as a sheet. Are you making yourself look half-dead on purpose? So people think we treat you badly?"

I didn't say anything. But my eyes had drifted to that half glass of milk on the table. I was so thirsty my throat hurt just swallowing.

Dad walked over and kicked the chair. The table jolted, the glass slid off the edge, and it shattered on the floor. Milk spread out white across the tile.

"That's for Colette. For her nutrition." His voice stayed low, but every word came out hard. "You already took her health. Now you want her milk too? Once you've touched something, how is she supposed to use it?"

Caleb was leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, watching the whole thing.

"If you'd just behave," he finally said, "and stop making trouble, they wouldn't treat you like this."

That hurt worse than the slap.

Because what he meant was: this is all your own fault.

Nobody spoke up for me. Nobody in this house ever had.

"Clean it up." Mom threw a rag at me. It hit my shoulder. "Then go to school. I don't want to look at you."

I knelt down and picked the glass out of the milk, wiping as I went. Colette didn't move the entire time. She sat on the couch and watched.

For those few seconds while Mom turned away to comfort her, I caught the look on Colette's face behind her fingers.

She was smiling. The corners of her mouth creeping up, pleased with herself.

Then Mom turned back, and it was gone. Fragile and hurt again, just like that.

I put my head down and kept wiping.

School was the only place in my day where I could sit down and not get hit.

Except today, when I walked into class, my cheek was still red and swollen. I let my hair fall over it.

After second period, Harper kept glancing at me from the next seat.

"Nell." She kept her voice low. "Did you skip breakfast again?"

I shook my head.

She didn't push it. She just pulled a plastic bag out of her backpack, half a peanut butter sandwich inside, and slid it under my desk.

"Don't tell anyone. My mom packed extra," Harper whispered.

Her mom only ever packed her one sandwich. I knew she was lying.

But I was starving.

I picked it up and took a bite.

There was a small crack inside my mouth, then pain shot straight from the root of my tooth to the top of my skull. I covered my mouth. Something small and bloody dropped into my palm.

Half a front tooth.

Harper went white and grabbed my arm. "Nell, your tooth— you're bleeding, I'm getting the nurse—"

"Don't." I closed my fist around the piece of tooth. Blood was seeping out between my fingers. "It's fine. Probably a cavity."

Harper stared at me for a few seconds. Her lips moved like she wanted to say something, but in the end she didn't.

She didn't believe me. She just had no idea what the truth was.

I knew it wasn't a cavity. My bones were going soft.

That was the price too.

After school I went into the kitchen for a glass of water. The glass had barely reached my hand when my stomach heaved.

I doubled over. There was nothing in me to bring up, but a mouthful of blood hit the white tile anyway. Dark red, thick, still steaming.

Colette walked in right then, screamed, and jumped back two steps. "Blood! That's disgusting!"

Mom and Dad came running.

Mom looked at the floor and her whole face went hard with anger.

"Nell! Did you drink red food coloring to scare your sister? Are you trying to give her a heart attack?"

I stared at the blood on the tile. For a second the whole thing felt like a dream.

I was coughing up my own lungs, and they thought I was putting on a show with food dye.

"I didn't—" Another mouthful came up before I could finish.

Dad walked over, grabbed my arm, and hauled me up off the floor and over to the wall.

"Kneel. Don't move." He let go. "You get up when you've figured out how to apologize to your sister. If I catch you standing, you're going back down to the basement tonight."

I knelt on the tile. My kneecaps pressed against the cold floor until they shook.

Mom tossed the rag at me. "You threw up. You clean it. On your knees."

I crawled over and started wiping the blood away, bit by bit. It had gotten into the grout and wouldn't come out, so I scraped at it with my fingernails.

Colette came in from the dining room and crouched down next to me. Her voice dropped low enough that only I could hear.

"There's a Christmas charity parade at school next week. You know about it?"

I didn't look up.

"I signed up. But you know how my body is. I can't walk that far." Her tone was light, almost casual. "Dad already worked it out. You put on the reindeer costume and do the whole route for me."

She paused.

"With the head on, nobody's going to know it's you in there anyway."

Then she stood, brushed off a skirt that had nothing on it, and walked back to the couch, smiling.