Chapter 4

I knelt on the floor and picked up the fragments.

A sharp edge cut my fingertip. Blood worked its way into the fine carving.

"You surrender too much to avoid an argument," Grandma had told me. "After I'm gone, don't let them have everything. Save something that's yours."

When she died, I lost the last person who understood me that way.

Everyone else saw a girl who could always manage alone.

Someone who didn't get hurt or lonely, who never needed to come first.

Looking at the broken cameo, I understood what they'd done.

They'd taken the one reminder of love that had been mine alone, without asking, and smashed it in front of me.

"Claire, I promise it was an accident," Sophie cried.

Mom went straight to her and held her.

"Stop crying, honey. You didn't do anything wrong."

Then she looked at me.

"Why did you rush her? You frightened her. What did you expect?"

"I didn't rush her. There were two steps between us when she dropped it."

Luke had come in behind Sophie. He looked down at the pieces and let out a sigh.

"Have somebody fix it. There are people who restore old jewelry."

"Mom took it without permission. Sophie broke it. Can't I even be angry about that?"

"Being angry won't put it back together," he replied. "Neither will making Sophie cry."

Mason took a tissue from his pocket and dabbed carefully at Sophie's cheeks.

Not one of them saw that my fingers were bleeding.

I folded my hand around what remained of the cameo.

Until then, every time they'd hurt me, I'd tried to make them understand.

I thought there must be some way to explain it that they'd finally hear.

Standing there with blood on my hand, I couldn't find anything else to tell them.

I put the broken pieces in my pocket and walked toward the door.

Mom called after me.

"Fine. Leave. But don't think we'll chase you. If this is how you're going to treat people, Claire, someday you won't have anybody."

I kept walking.

She didn't realize I wasn't planning to return.

Back at the hostel, I put away the last of my belongings.

My Seattle flight was the next morning.

At last, I was getting out.

At one a.m., a text from Mason lit up my phone.

Sophie's been crying for hours. When are you going to stop this?

The others started in, too.

Mom ordered me home to apologize.

Luke said I was spoiling what should have been a wonderful week for Sophie.

Dad told me being a family meant knowing when to let things go.

All right, then.

I let them go.

I blocked their numbers, zipped the damaged suitcase, and headed to the airport before the sun came up.

At check-in, a wheel caught on the edge of the scale. A middle-aged woman in line behind me helped hoist the case onto it.

"Moving far?" she asked, noticing the one-way tag for Seattle.

I nodded.

"Nobody from your family could come with you?"

I felt oddly calm.

"They had someone else to look after. Someone who mattered more."

Once we were above the clouds, I brought the cameo pieces out of my pocket.

Only then did I start to cry.

I wasn't crying because I wanted to go back.

I was crying for who I'd been: a girl who kept quiet, tried harder, and needed less, certain that sooner or later someone would notice her and love her.

I wasn't going to be that girl anymore.

My family expected me to return, say I was sorry, and move into the storage room. I'd always given in before.

They didn't know I was flying almost three thousand miles away.

By the time they understood I wasn't returning, my life would be mine.