Chapter 2

By the time I got home, I was coughing so hard it felt like my lungs were ripping apart.

A 20-cent painkiller bought me four hours of relief. I needed three a day—just enough to keep me going until I finished paying for the plot next to my foster mother, Vera Johnson.

I pushed too hard today. My stomach churned like someone was working a dull blade inside it.

As I fumbled for the medicine, the door swung open.

Jeremy stood there, scanning the room. His frown deepened into a hard knot.

"You don't have to ruin yourself just to put on this act. Things weren't so simple back then. We all had our reasons. I did what I had to.

"Jess saved my life. She donated one of her kidneys to me..."

I jerked my head up, feeling as though I had just heard the biggest joke in the world.

Just as I was about to speak, a small head peeked out from behind him.

My heart nearly stopped.

It was Oliver Grant.

Five years had passed.

Five years ago, I spent an entire day and night in labor to bring him into this world, and I nearly bled to death on the delivery table.

I tried to speak, but my throat closed up.

Oliver glanced around at the tiny metal shed I called home and frowned.

"Dad, I already let you move me to that woman's old school so you could track her down. Now you're dragging me to a slum for an after-school tour?"

Jeremy covered his mouth.

"Ollie, we've found your mom."

Oliver shot me a look of pure disgust.

I forced a bitter smile, pushed myself up, and swallowed the metallic taste crawling up my throat.

I turned to a metal box, pulled out a few crumpled bills, and held them out.

"You gave me a hundred. Here's 78 dollars in change. We're even now. You should leave."

Jeremy knocked my hand away and kicked over the plastic stool beside him.

"Madison, we haven't seen each other in five years! Ever since you saw me, all you've talked about is money. What exactly do you want?"

I helplessly turned to Oliver and offered him the cash instead.

Oliver looked at the grease-stained bills and smacked my hand away.

"You may not have had the elite education Jess grew up with, but at least you used to be a fireworks designer. It wasn't exactly prestigious, but it was decent work."

His gaze swept over the plastic bags hanging from wires, the stacks of cardboard boxes piled in the corner, and the half-empty medicine bottle on the coffee table.

"You're so desperate to sell this act that you're picking used medicine bottles out of the garbage. That's just sad."

Jeremy raised his hand and slapped him across the face.

The protective look in his eyes left me momentarily dazed.

The first time I returned to the Decker residence, the homesickness was unbearable. I would sneak onto the rooftop, huddle in a corner, and draw fireworks until my tears blurred the pages.

Even then, I never had the courage to call Vera.

When I turned 18, a dying Vera confessed that she wasn't my real mother. She'd never had the heart to send me away, but she lived in fear that her own daughter was already dead.

Eventually, I found the Decker family. Vera was relieved, but her health still declined.

After crying myself exhausted, I pulled a bread roll from my pocket and took huge bites.

A group of people passing behind me laughed at me, then a hand suddenly reached out from the corner.

"I'm sick of fancy restaurant food. Share that with me. Let's try something else."

Later, I learned that he was Jeremy Grant, the man the Decker family had chosen as my future husband.

The fireworks on that rooftop that day, and him, were imprinted in my mind.

We married, and then came Oliver.

Everything was fine until Jessica returned home after graduating overseas. Jeremy went to pick her up and got into a car accident.

I went to the hospital to care for her.

Instead, I found them tangled up together in her bed.

"I'm bored, Maddie. I need something different."

I divorced him and took nothing with me.

Later, Vera got sick and needed money. Jeremy asked me to remarry him. I said yes.

He filled the villa with my fireworks design sketches. He even promised Vera that he would arrange a meeting between her and Jessica.

I wanted to believe his betrayal was just a slip.

But that night, Jessica turned everything I had to ash.

When I woke up, I was wearing a stranger's face.

By the time I got out, Vera was just a name on a headstone.

I couldn't keep the iron taste down anymore. I coughed, and a mouthful of blood splattered across the floor.

Jeremy's expression changed immediately. He bent down to help me, but Oliver grabbed his sleeve.

"First the tears, then the theatrics, now the blood. We haven't even brought her home, and she's already trying to make Jess miserable."

He cocked his head and smiled at me. "Go ahead. If you're going to die, get it over with. Once you're gone, Jess can be my real mom."

He turned and left without looking back.

Jeremy wanted to say something, but then a small figure burst through the door.

"Mom! The inspectors passed by, and I was worried about you, so I left school early and came back..."