Chapter 1

Flora's POV

I died the night I refused to postpone the engagement party.

The morning after my death, my parents were still having breakfast with my sister Blair, excitedly planning her award ceremony.

Before I died, the only person who answered my desperate call was my mother. I was being chased by kidnappers at the time, and I begged her to save me, telling her I was dying. But she said, "Stop being so dramatic! You're just trying to get our attention. If you want to die so badly, then go ahead and die."

That was my last call for help before the line went dead, and then I was struck by a car.

I lay on that dark road, bleeding profusely. They thought I was just sulking, hiding away to get attention.

They thought if they ignored me, I would come back and apologize to them.

They didn't know I was already dead.

...

I opened my eyes and blinked. Wait, wasn't it just night a second ago?

I tried to sit up but my hand went straight through the ground.

My stomach dropped. I looked down and saw a body on the pavement, face completely destroyed, just raw meat and broken bone. Blood pooled thick and dark around the head. The clothes were mine.

That was me down there.

I stared at my own corpse and felt nothing. No pain, no fear. Just this weird hollow emptiness.

Then something yanked me backward like a hook in my chest, and I couldn't fight it no matter how hard I tried.

...

When the world came back into focus, I was standing in my parents' dining room.

My mom was pouring orange juice while Dad read his newspaper. My adopted sister Blair sat across from them, smiling at something Mom just said.

Everything looked so fucking normal.

I stood in the corner. Nobody looked at me or nobody could see me.

Blair suddenly looked up. "Mom, where is Flora?"

Mom's face went hard. She set down the juice pitcher with a sharp clink. "She's dead," she said.

The words came out flat and cold.

I flinched even though I had no body to flinch with.

And all I could think was, she doesn't even know it's true and she's still saying it like she means it.

I suddenly recalled how I had died.

A few days ago, Blair waved her phone, screaming about winning the literary award. Mom shrieked with joy. Dad embraced her.

Then Dad turned to me, postpone my engagement party. Blair's ceremony was more important.

"That's my engagement party." I couldn't believe Dad would so easily choose to make me back down.

"You can get engaged anytime," Mom dismissed. "Blair's award is once in a lifetime."

Jason nodded. "We can change the date. Blair needs support."

But that award-winning book of hers was even written by me. After Blair found out that the book I wrote had become very popular online, she fell to her knees, sobbing and begging me to let her have the authorship of that book. "Please Flora, let me have this one thing. You have everything, I have nothing."

Dad pulled me aside. "Do this for your sister, or you're not my daughter."

Mom was blunter: "Choose family or pride."

Jason wrapped his arms around me. "Be reasonable. Blair's had a hard life. You can write another book."

So I gave in. Like always. Let Blair take my name, my book, my award.

Now they wanted my engagement party too.

I refused.

"You're being selfish," Dad snapped.

Something shattered inside me. Selfish? After giving her everything?

"Just reschedule," Mom insisted.

"No."

My fiancé Jason, the man who should have been on my side the most, sighed. "Don't be difficult."

"Fine. Go to Blair's ceremony. All of you. I'll celebrate alone."

Dad's face reddened. "If you don't postpone, we're not coming."

"Then don't." I turned around and wanted to leave this suffocating place.

Mom stood. "Walk out that door, don't come back."

I grabbed my purse, turned back: "Keep pushing me, and I'll tell everyone who really wrote that book."

Blair gasped. Mom paled.

I left.

I checked into this depressing motel. The bed had a permanent sag in the middle and I lay there staring at water stains on the ceiling, tears running into my hair.

It's been like this for twenty-five years, nobody's ever had my back. I should be used to it by now, so why do I still expect things to be different?

The next day I went to work like normal. By the time I got off my shift that evening, the anger had mostly drained away and I thought maybe I was being too harsh, maybe I should just agree to postpone the stupid party.

I was reaching for my phone in the parking garage when someone grabbed me from behind.

I kicked and thrashed but it didn't matter.

"The boss said keep her locked up for a day," one of them muttered close to my ear. "Just make sure she can't show up at the award ceremony."

"Boss also said teach her a lesson though," another voice answered.

They shoved me into a van and everything went dark.

They took me to an abandoned building in a remote suburb, where they assaulted and beat me. I struggled desperately, but only to be met with more intense pain. One of them even smashed a stone into my face, almost blinding me, and I could only feel my face covered in blood.

Then somehow I got loose during the chaos and I ran, stumbled out onto the road with my face feeling wrong and wet, my legs barely working.

I pulled out my phone with hands that wouldn't stop shaking and called Dad first.

This number has blocked you.

No, please.

I tried Mom and she actually picked up. "What? Make it quick, I'm helping Blair pick out her dress."

"Mom—" My voice came out broken. "Mom please—"

Dad's voice in the background: "Is this about the party again? Did we spoil her too much? She's running away for attention like a child."

"I swear if she comes back on her own we'll forgive her this once," Dad continued, "but if she doesn't, she can stay gone forever."

"Mom," I choked out, blood filling my mouth, "I was kidnapped, they hurt me, please come get me, I think I'm dying—"

Silence on the other end.

Then Mom laughed, short and mean. "Stop being dramatic. You think making up stories will make us change our minds? If you want to die so badly then go ahead and die."

She hung up.

I stood there on that dark road staring at my phone, tears and blood running down what was left of my face.

I grabbed my phone once more, planning to call for police assistance.

But suddenly a car came out of nowhere and slammed into me and I flew and landed hard, pain exploding everywhere and nowhere at once. I heard voices, the kidnappers, they'd stopped to look at me lying there in all that blood, then they got back in their car and drove away fast.

My head felt so heavy. My eyes wouldn't focus right.

Other people's parents love their children, I thought as everything faded. Mine only know how to hate me.

After remembering all of this, tears run down my face. Can ghosts cry? I guess so.

Mom had told me to go die and now I'm dead, she finally got exactly what she wanted.