Chapter 3

Reagan's POV

"Stop right there!"

Grayson calls out behind me.

He walks over and slams his hand down on my suitcase.

"You hurt Willow like that and think you can just leave without apologizing?"

I lift my head and look at this face I used to love more than anything. I'm so tired.

"Grayson, are you blind? She broke that frame herself. She threw herself onto the glass!"

"You're really gonna stand here and lie to my face?" Grayson lets out a bitter laugh. "Willow wouldn't hurt a fly. You think she'd hurt herself just to frame you? Reagan, you're so desperate for attention you've lost your damn mind."

While we're fighting by the door, the zipper on my suitcase bursts open.

My clothes spill out everywhere.

Something else falls out with them. A piece of paper with a hospital stamp on it.

Willow spots it first, rushes over and picks it up.

She glances at it. Her hand flies to her mouth and tears start falling.

"Reagan, how could you do this?"

Willow holds up the paper and turns to face everyone. "She faked a cancer diagnosis. Says she's stage four."

The room goes dead silent.

Carter snatches the report from her hands, scans it for two seconds, then lets out a cold, ugly laugh.

"Stage four stomach cancer? Three months to live?"

Carter throws the paper in my face. The edge cuts my cheek.

"Reagan! Are you out of your damn mind? You'd fake having cancer just to kick Willow out? Just to guilt us into feeling sorry for you?"

"What'd you do, get some black market hospital stamp?"

I'm shaking all over. I point at the report on the floor, my voice cracking. "It's real! I really have cancer! These past three years I've been working myself to death for this company. Sleeping three hours a night. Bleeding from my stomach. Did any of you even notice?"

"Enough!"

Dad slams his hand on the table. "Stop acting! Look at you, yelling and screaming. That's what a dying person looks like to you? Willow cuts her hand and you'd fake cancer? You're sick in the head!"

"Exactly!" Mom chimes in. "So we lied to you and now you think you can lie back? Is that it? Let me tell you something, Reagan. Even if you really do have cancer and you're dying, I will never forgive you!"

Even if you really do have cancer and you're dying, I will never forgive you.

That sentence hits me like a sledgehammer. Shatters whatever tiny piece of hope I had left.

The pain in my stomach reaches a breaking point.

It feels like something's tearing my insides apart.

My legs give out. I drop to my knees.

I gag once. Then blood pours out of my mouth and splatters across that white medical report.

Willow screams and buries herself in Grayson's arms.

I clutch my chest. Blood drips from the corner of my mouth.

I thought maybe seeing me cough up blood would make them believe me.

I thought even if I were a dog they'd raised for twenty years, they'd show a little mercy when they saw me bleeding.

I was wrong.

Grayson stares at the pool of blood on the floor and smirks.

"Reagan, you're really putting on a show in front of the kid. That's fake blood, right? Movie prop blood? You really went all out for this little performance."

"Wait, fake blood?"

Carter hears that and the disgust in his eyes turns to pure rage.

He walks up to me and grabs me by the hair, yanking my head back.

"Reagan, you make me sick!"

"I'm not lying. I'm really not." I try to pull away but I'm too weak. Tears and blood run down my face together.

"Don't talk back to me!"

Carter completely loses it. He lifts his foot and kicks me hard in the stomach.

I go flying. My head slams into the corner of the coffee table.

Pain explodes through my skull.

Something warm runs down my forehead. Everything goes blurry.

Right before I black out, I hear Willow's voice. "Carter, stop hitting Reagan. What if she really is sick?"

"She's not sick! She just needs to learn her lesson!"

That's the last thing I hear from my own brother.

I close my eyes and let the darkness swallow me whole.

I really wish I could just die like this and never wake up again.