A Gift for My Brother's Eighteenth Birthday

The sensation of weightlessness emptied every last breath from my chest.

Below me was the abandoned fountain in the Ashford estate's backyard, with a bronze angel statue standing at its center.

Its sharp wings pointed skyward like two spears.

I didn't struggle. I didn't scream.

I just spread my arms as wide as I could, like a bird that had finally broken free from its cage.

The next second, my body slammed down.

A bronze wing pierced through my lower back and out my chest.

The agony lasted only a single instant.

Then all sensation faded into nothing.

I was dead.

It happened at my brother Ethan's grandest, most extravagant eighteenth-birthday celebration.

My father's shove, delivered in a fit of rage, had sent me falling from a terrace more than a hundred feet high.

No one noticed I had fallen.

My body was still impaled on the statue.

But my vision was slowly rising.

My soul, weightless as a wisp of fog, drifted toward the brightly lit banquet hall.

It was so bright in here.

For five years, my world had consisted of nothing but dim wall sconces.

The windows in the quiet room had been sealed year-round with heavy soundproofing curtains, blocking out nearly every trace of light.

But here, a nine-tiered French fondant cake stood at the center of the banquet hall.

Ethan, wearing a tailored white suit, stood before the champagne tower, raising his glass with his friends.

My father, Richard, had just come down the stairs.

Every trace of his fury had vanished, replaced by the refined smile of a successful businessman.

My mother, Victoria, lifted the hem of her dress and hurried over to meet him.

"Richard, where's Amelia?

"She isn't causing trouble again, is she?"

She kept her voice low, her eyes darting nervously toward the guests, terrified someone might overhear.

My father picked up a glass of red wine and let out a cold laugh.

"What trouble could she cause?

"She tried the whole 'I want to die' act on me again.

"I dragged her to the edge of the terrace and told her to jump if she had the guts.

"You think she dared?

"All she knows how to do is act crazy and torment us."

Victoria let out a long sigh of relief and patted her chest.

"You scared me half to death.

"Today is Ethan's big day. Nearly everyone important in this city is here.

"If she had one of her episodes and started screaming, what would that do to our family's reputation?"

I hovered beside the crystal chandelier, quietly watching my parents.

Five years ago, they hadn't been like this.

That first year, my mother had stayed up all night outside the quiet room. Whenever she heard me vomiting, she would come in with red-rimmed eyes and wipe my mouth clean.

My father had brought in doctors from everywhere, cleared his entire schedule, and personally supervised the workers as they padded every sharp corner in the house.

But my condition refused to improve.

Appointment after appointment, breakdown after breakdown, nightmare after nightmare jolting me awake in the dead of night. It all slowly wore their patience to nothing.

Eventually, my father went back to work, and my mother began to dread the strange looks from others.

The genuine compassion that had once existed faded into indifference, then curdled into disgust.

Ethan sauntered over with his new girlfriend Jessica on his arm, reeking of alcohol.

"Dad, Mom, where's my sister?"

"Back in that hole of hers."

My father took a sip of wine, his eyes full of contempt.

"What a buzzkill."

Ethan scoffed and yanked his tie loose.

"She just can't stand seeing me happy!

"For five years, I haven't dared bring a single friend home. I've been terrified someone would find out I have a mentally unstable sister.

"Today is my eighteenth birthday, and she has to come out faking headaches and acting crazy. Does she want to drive me to my grave? Would that finally make her happy?"

Jessica leaned into his arms and chimed in softly.

"Ethan, don't be too hard on your sister.

"People with mental illness can't really help it.

"It's just unfair to you.

"You almost gave up your spot at a top university just to take care of her."

That only fueled Ethan's anger.

"Who does she think she is?

"Why should I sacrifice my future to take care of her?

"If I weren't worried about people calling our family heartless, I'd have had her shipped off a long time ago!"

I floated in the air, listening to that phrase, "shipped off," and found it almost laughable.

They all seemed to have forgotten the kidnapping case that had shaken the entire city five years ago.

The ransom letter had named the target clearly: the sole heir of Ashford Group, Ethan Ashford.

That day after school, I spotted the unmarked black van from a distance.

In a split second, I shoved Ethan into a dumpster on the street corner.

Then I pulled off his jacket with the Ashford Academy crest and put it on myself before running toward the alley entrance.

Ethan actually knew the truth.

When I pushed him into the dumpster, I had clamped my hand over his mouth and told him that no matter what, he must never tell our parents.

I was afraid my parents would blame everything on him. He was only thirteen.

After I was rescued, he tried several times to tell the truth through his tears, but each time I shook my head and stopped him.

He used to lie outside the quiet room all night, whispering through the door again and again, "I'm sorry, sis."

But five years was too long.

The endless caretaking, the constantly canceled plans, the whispered mockery from people around him, all of it ground down his guilt little by little.

Eventually, even he started to believe the kidnappers had simply grabbed the wrong person.

And I was nothing but a burden ruining the family's normal life.

That day, those brutal criminals had dragged me into a basement.

The torture lasted three days and three nights.

They drove shards of glass into my flesh.

They beat me again and again with a rusted iron bar.

I passed out from the deafening noise and sheer terror, only to be doused awake with cold water.

By the time the police found me, I couldn't form a single coherent sentence.

I was later diagnosed with severe PTSD.

I couldn't tolerate sharp objects, and I couldn't bear sudden loud noises.

To quiet the media's persistent questions, they built me a foam-padded "quiet room" with walls covered on all four sides.

At first, it really was meant to help me recover in peace.

But later, they discovered that locking the door was far easier than comforting me each time.

From that point on, the quiet room was no longer a place of healing. It became the cage they locked me in.

They resented the sound of my screaming during episodes.

They found the scars covering my body too ugly to look at.

They took a girl who had once been a proud young prodigy and locked her in the dark like a dangerous animal.

This was what they called "sacrificing everything."

Looking down at the cozy family of three below, I felt something release inside me.

Good for them.

From now on, they would never have to feel burdened again.

And I would never come out to disrupt their lives again.