Chapter 3

"Stella, you tell me the truth," Mom demanded, her voice tight. "Is your sister lying? Is her jar actually empty?" 

A flicker of hurt crossed her eyes as she looked at me. "I can't believe this. I've spent over a decade raising you, sacrificing everything. And you wipe out all my efforts with one simple word: empty."

I bit my pale lip, looking at my younger sister with desperate hope. Stella just blinked innocently, burying her face against Mom's waist. 

"Lila's jar is perfectly full, Mom, just like mine," Stella said softly.

"Why are you lying, Lila? Mom works so hard to take care of us. Why are you so ungrateful?"

All the blood drained from my face. "You're lying..."

"That's enough!" Mom snapped. 

"I never should have gone soft on you," she continued, her words cutting like glass. "Since you think I've never given you any love or care, then stop calling me Mom. Go find someone else to be your mother, someone who you think actually loves you."

Blood was still weeping from the open gash on my arm, but Mom didn't even look at it. She truly believed Stella's lies, convinced that I was just putting on a dramatic show.

I tried to explain, but she refused to hear a single word. Over the next few days, she wouldn't even look at me. The silence between us was suffocating, lasting until a freak thunderstorm hit the city later that week. 

Mom had come to the school to pick up Stella. As the heavy rain poured down, a teacher gently suggested that Mom should give me an umbrella, too.

She just scoffed loudly in front of everyone. 

"She already thinks I'm a terrible mother," she announced bitterly. "Why should I bother? At least a stray dog wags its tail when you feed it."

I swallowed the lump in my throat and followed them out into the storm, letting the freezing rain soak me to the bone. 

"Mom, maybe I should share my umbrella with Lila," Stella said, pausing on the sidewalk. 

Before Mom could answer, a violent gust of wind howled through the street. A towering oak beside the sidewalk groaned. Its roots ripped through the concrete, crashing directly toward us.

Pain exploded in my body as the heavy trunk slammed into my leg, pinning it at a horrifying angle. Stella, meanwhile, was merely trapped under a pile of leafy branches.

"You're a jinx, Lila!" Mom screamed, scrambling up. "Why am I so unlucky to have a child like you? If Stella hadn't stopped to worry about you, she never would have been hit!" 

"Stella! My baby!" Mom sobbed, diving wildly into the wet leaves.

Lying in the mud, I didn't even pray for her to rescue me first. I only hoped that once she pulled Stella out, she would remember I was still trapped here.

But she didn't. Mom scooped up my crying sister—who only had a few scratched-up knees—and immediately started running down the street, treating me like I was completely invisible.

"Mom, please! Don't leave me!" I sobbed, wrapping my hands around her ankle as she tried to pass me. "My leg is crushed. Please don't go."

She didn't even look down. She impatiently pried my freezing fingers off her leg, pushing my hand back into the mud.

"I'll send someone back to help you after I get Stella to the emergency room," she shouted over the rain, fleeing without looking back.

I blacked out in the storm. By the time paramedics finally cut me free and brought me to the hospital, the first thing I saw was Mom charging toward my stretcher.

"This is your fault!" she yelled at me right in the crowded hallway. "You delayed Stella's treatment by grabbing me out there! If she has a scar on her face, I will never forgive you!"

A bitter laugh escaped my chest. "Is my crushed leg really less important to you than a scratch on her face?"

The question caught her off guard. Mom froze, her lips trembling slightly before she squeezed her eyes shut in frustration.

"Why do you always have to compete with Stella?" she hissed. "You sit around all day doing nothing while we put a roof over your head. Would it kill you to sacrifice a little for your sister?"

"You're so selfish, Lila. Always keeping score," she muttered disgustedly. "How did I ever raise a daughter like you?"

"I just wanted you to love me. I just wanted you to care, so I could use the jar to save Dad."

I was too exhausted to even cry anymore. The hope was entirely drained out of me. 

"If you want me to sacrifice, then I guess this is how it ends," I whispered. "If I take an empty jar back to that place, I'll die. Mom, I really didn't want to die."

Mom rolled her eyes. "Here we go again. When are you going to drop this ridiculous lie? If I knew you were going to ruin this family's peace, I never would have had you."

I didn't have the strength to argue anymore.

My mom didn't love me. She hadn't believed in me for a long time. Honestly, she probably stopped loving me the exact second Stella was born.

As the monitor beeped softly beside my bed, I remembered the cold, mechanical voice of the clerk at the shop. 

"A defective product," the clerk had called me. "Hated by all."

If that was true, then I guess it was fine.

Once I was finally destroyed, my family would finally have their perfect peace.