They Threw My Sister a Party While I Died Beneath Their Feet

Nora's POV

On the birthday I shared with my twin sister, my family threw her a party—and called my absence a tantrum.

None of them knew I was lying in the cellar beneath their feet.

With broken fingers, I'd sent my husband the one word he swore would bring him running from anywhere: Lighthouse. He called it a guilt trip and told me to be at the party by seven.

So they toasted my sister. They tossed my place card in the trash. They shoved my gift onto a closet shelf without opening it.

By the time they finally lifted the lid, it was far too late.

 ——

I died on my birthday, and my family spent the evening complaining that I was late. They thought I'd stormed off to sulk before my sister's party. None of them guessed that I had never left the house. All that was left of me drifted through the rooms, watching.

Just after five, my family came in laughing. Dad carried Tessa's custom gown, Mom juggled two bakery boxes, and Adrian, my husband, balanced a tower of gift bags. Tessa trailed in last with her hands held up, fingers spread.

"Careful, careful," Mom fussed, bumping the door shut with her hip. "Her nails are still wet."

Tessa was the family's golden child, and no one in this house would let her carry so much as her own purse.

Adrian and I had moved in after our wedding, just until our own place was finished. Four years later, we were still here.

Adrian set up the projector and called toward the stairs. "Nora! Come fix this slideshow. It's your birthday, not a day off."

A week ago, I would have run down the moment he said my name. Now I only floated beside him and watched him like a stranger.

The slideshow on his screen was Tessa's portfolio. Every piece in it had started on my drawing table.

When no one answered from upstairs, he called my phone. It went straight to voicemail.

Tessa plucked the phone from his hand, minding her nails. "If Nora won't come, I can do the slideshow."

He laughed and steered her to the sofa. "With those nails? Sit."

The moment she turned away, his smile vanished. He redialed and spoke through gritted teeth. "Nora, enough. Half the guests tonight are Tessa's clients. Come home and don't embarrass us."

Mom rolled her eyes. "Let me guess. Nora's sulking again."

"Of course she is." Adrian yanked a cable free. "Anytime things don't go her way, she vanishes and waits for somebody to come crawling after her."

"Then nobody crawls," Dad said flatly. "Let her find out how little this party needs her. Tonight belongs to Tessa. Whether Nora's here or not changes nothing."

Mom picked up the place card with my name on it and dropped it into the wastebasket. "There. Now she won't need a seat."

The longer they talked, the colder the room became.

Tessa slipped off the sofa and rubbed Dad's arm. "Don't be so hard on her. It's her birthday too. It won't feel right without her. Let me call around—maybe one of her friends knows where she went."

She disappeared down the hallway, and behind her the family murmured about how thoughtful she was, how forgiving. Not one of them noticed that she never took out her phone.

I followed her.

She went to the door at the end of the hall, the one that led down to the wine cellar. Biscuit, my old golden retriever, lay across the threshold with his nose pressed to the gap. She nudged him aside with her foot, unlocked the door with a key from her purse, and went down.

When she saw me crumpled against the far wall, my blouse torn and my hair stiff with blood, she clapped a hand over her mouth to smother a laugh.

She came closer and prodded my ribs with the pointed toe of her shoe. "Still playing dead? Get up."

I didn't move. I couldn't. I was already gone.

She bent down, pinched my chin, and turned my face toward the bare bulb. My eyes stayed shut. A crease formed between her brows—and then the doorbell chimed upstairs.

"The caterers," she muttered, and let my head drop.

She gave my leg one last kick. "Stay down here where you belong. You are not ruining my night."

She locked the door, slipped the key back into her purse, and walked into Adrian's arms with glistening eyes. "Nobody's seen her. It's my fault. I must have upset her this morning."

Adrian held her tight. "Stop. None of this is on you. Tonight is about you, so don't waste a single thought on someone who isn't worth one."

Someone who isn't worth one.

If I'd still had breath, I would have laughed.

Tessa and I were born on the same day, but only one of us ever got a birthday. Every year, I blew out a single candle alone in the kitchen after everyone had gone to bed.

This year, my birthday was also my goodbye.

Five weeks earlier, a doctor had pointed to a dark shape on a brain scan and told me to get my affairs in order. I laid the report on the dining table. Dad pushed it back without a word. Mom said I'd probably printed it off some website.

I had never wanted to fight Tessa for scraps of their attention. I hadn't even planned to come to the party. That morning, I'd asked Adrian for one thing: to drive me to the coast so I could see the ocean one last time. He'd told me he had already promised to take Tessa to her final fitting.

So I bought a train ticket for myself. I wrapped a box for the party, set it on the hall table, and reached for my coat. That was as far as I got. Three men in dark jackets came through the side door, and something heavy cracked against the back of my skull.

I woke on the cold floor of the cellar.

The leader was twirling Tessa's spare keys around one finger. Behind him, another man held up a phone in a pink Penny Bear case—Tessa's old phone—its camera aimed at me.

"She wants to see everything," the leader said.

I begged. I offered them money, anything. They didn't bother to answer. They just kept hitting me until I could barely lift my arms.

Then they ripped my clothes and photographed me on the floor like an object. When the man holding Tessa's phone leaned in for a closer shot, I swung my arm out with everything I had left. The phone flew from his grip and skidded beneath the wine rack.

Before he could get down on his knees to fish it out, a car door slammed out front. The leader swore. "Leave it. Go."

They ran. The cellar door banged shut, and the dark came down.

I could still breathe. Barely.

I tried 911 first, but the stone walls swallowed the signal, and the call dropped before anyone answered. Whenever a bar flickered back, I called Mom, then Dad, then Adrian. No one picked up.

My fingers were broken, so I typed only the one word that mattered: Lighthouse.

On our honeymoon, standing beneath an old lighthouse on the coast, Adrian had wrapped his arms around me and said, "If you're ever in trouble, send me that word. I don't care where I am. I'll come."

I'd laughed into his jacket. "What kind of trouble could I possibly get into? We live in the suburbs."

I pressed send and stared at the screen until his answer came.

"Really, Nora? I say no to one beach trip, and you use our word to guilt me? That's low. It's your birthday, so I'll drop it. Be at the party by seven."

He thought it was a game.

I would never make it to that party. He would never see me alive again.