Chapter 1: Even You Don't Want Me Anymore

Ilone Thorne's POV

"Ms. Thorne, we really did everything we could…"

"Please." I grabbed the doctor's white coat with both hands, my whole body shaking so hard I could barely hold on. "Please, just save her. I'll pay anything. Whatever it takes."

The young doctor placed a hand gently on my arm. "Ms. Thorne, this isn't about money." He paused, his voice careful and low. "You've done everything humanly possible for her. She knows she is deeply loved."

I watched him turn and walk away, and felt every last ounce of strength drain out of me. My back hit the cold wall, and I slid down it until I was sitting on the floor.

With trembling hands, I dialed the familiar number.

"Mom." My voice cracked. "It's Grandma. She's — she's not going to make it."

"What do you mean she's not going to make it? Speak clearly, Ilone." My mother's voice came sharp and instant, like a slap. "Honestly, is your brain as stuffed as the rest of you? You can't even string a sentence together."

"She's at Northwood General Hospital," I managed. "You need to come."

"Why didn't you call sooner? God, you are useless. Fat is one thing, but stupid on top of it? Why can't you be more like Ophelia — considerate, capable, not a constant embarrassment? I genuinely cannot understand it. I was a supermodel. Your father was a professional athlete. How did we end up with you?"

Each word landed somewhere tender, and I felt my chest tighten until breathing became an effort.

"Mom, please. Just come back. Grandma is waiting for you."

"Ilone." Her tone shifted into something harder, more final. "We just arrived in Witham City. Tonight is Ophelia's opening walk — her first headline slot. This is the proudest moment your father and I have ever had. And you want us to leave?" A beat of silence, then: "I know what this is. You're doing this to sabotage her debut. You're jealous, so you're making things up — using your own grandmother as a weapon. I didn't think even you could sink that low. If something actually happens to her, you might as well disappear along with her. You don't deserve to be my daughter."

Before I could respond, I heard a soft, lilting voice in the background — young and unhurried.

"Mom? Who is it? The show's about to start."

"Nobody, sweetheart. Just a spam call. Come on — tonight is all about you."

The line went dead.

I sat there listening to the silence, and something almost like laughter rose in my throat — not because anything was funny, but because the world had become so absurd I didn't know what else to do with it. There really were parents who did not love their children. Mine had never pretended otherwise. To them, I was a stain on the Thorne name — too heavy, too plain, too much of the wrong things and not enough of anything they valued.

I had tried. I had starved and dieted and squeezed myself into sample sizes and stepped onto runways while people laughed, all because I thought if I could just look like Ophelia, like my mother in her prime, they might finally see me. Instead, my mother had screamed at me for humiliating her, for dragging her legacy through the mud. She had asked me, more than once, why I didn't just disappear.

Maybe she was right. Maybe the kindest thing I could do for everyone was to stop taking up space.

But then I thought of Grandma.

Grandma, who remembered how I took my tea, who held me when I cried and called me a gift from God, the best thing in the world. Grandma, who used to extend her hand with exaggerated formality and ask, My beautiful princess, may I have this dance? She had given me every warm thing I had ever known.

And now she was the last warm thing left.

I hauled myself off the floor and ran.

I barely heard the nurse calling after me — Ms. Thorne, no running in the corridor — because there was only one thought left in my head: faster, faster, don't be too late.

I was terrified that one more second would mean I'd never get to hold on to the last bit of warmth I had in this world.

When I pushed open the door to her room, Grandma was lying quietly in the bed, and she turned to look at me with a smile.

I crossed to her side and bent down, and my tears fell one by one onto the back of her hand.

"Grandma…"

"Ilone." Her voice was barely there, thin as a thread in the wind. "Don't be frightened. I'm all right."

"When I get out of here… we'll make you a prettier dress."

"Yes." I bit down hard on my lip, forcing every sob back down. I wiped my face quickly, then looked up and gave her the most broken smile I had ever produced in my life. "Yes, and by then I'll have lost weight too, and I'll put on the dress you made me, and it'll look so — so —"

"So beautiful." She finished the sentence for me, her breath coming slow. "My Ilone… is the most beautiful girl."

She paused, gathering herself. "Don't be ashamed of yourself, Ilone. Your beauty… has nothing to do with your size."

Another pause. "I'm sorry… I won't get to see you… walk down the aisle in your wedding dress."

"Ilone… promise me… promise me you'll…"

"Grandma, tell me. Whatever it is, I promise. I promise you everything —"

Her eyes went still.

Dr. Perrault looked at me with quiet sorrow. "I'm so sorry, Ms. Thorne. Iris Thorne has passed. But she went peacefully. There was no pain."

For a moment I just stared at him, as if waking from a dream I hadn't known I was in.

I took her hand — still warm — and looked back at him.

"Doctor, feel this. She's still warm. She's still here. Please try again. Please."

He said nothing. He only shook his head, slowly.

"Take all the time you need," he said. "When you're ready, we can discuss the arrangements with the funeral home. There's no rush."

I reached out and gently lifted the white sheet the doctor had drawn over her face. Then I leaned close, and spoke in a voice meant only for her.

"Grandma… even you don't want me anymore?"

"Come back. Please come back."

"I'll put on a wedding dress right now. I'll go get married today. Just please don't go."

I pressed my face into her hands and held on, trying to keep whatever warmth remained.

From the next bed, I heard Mrs. Grant speaking to her son in a low voice. "Jasper, go help Ms. Ilone. She's managing everything on her own. I'll be fine without you — go."

The man's voice came back, lazy and amused. "Mom, I'm not exactly equipped to lift a beached whale off the floor."

"Jasper. Your manners."

"I'm being honest. Sure, her face is fine, but have you looked below the neck? That dress is barely holding together. And don't even get me started on the — the situation up front. You want me to help her? I'd need a forklift, not good intentions."

I heard every word. And the strangest part was that it didn't even hurt the way it should have, because somewhere beneath the grief I had already agreed with him. He was only saying out loud what I had always believed about myself.

I steadied myself against the bed frame and stood, slowly. Then I turned toward Mrs. Grant and offered her a genuine smile.

"Thank you, Mrs. Grant. The funeral home has already sent someone — everything is taken care of. And thank you, truly, for looking after my grandmother all this time."

My phone rang before I could finish.

"Ilone, why did it take you so long to pick up? What's happened to Mother?"

"Say something. Don't you dare go quiet on me. What's going on? Ilone — Ilone —"

My mother's voice came rapid and sharp, and something in my stomach lurched. I pressed a hand to my mouth, fighting a wave of nausea that rose without warning.

Then a hand reached past me from behind — large, deliberate, the knuckles clean and distinct — and took the phone from my fingers. A single press of a button, and the noise stopped.

I turned, slowly.

All I could make out was a tall figure in a well-cut black suit, standing against the light, features unreadable.

The room tilted. The edges of my vision went soft, then began to blur.

I tried to keep my feet under me. I made a conscious decision to fall backward rather than forward — whoever was standing there didn't deserve to go down with me.

But the impact never came. A pair of arms caught me — solid and steady — and then the ground left me entirely as I was lifted off my feet.

In the last second before the darkness took over, I had one dim, self-mocking thought: I must already be hallucinating. There's no way anyone just picked me up.