Chapter 1

Seeing me still crouched on the ground, bruised all over, Diane Raynor laughed and ruffled my hair.

"Have you gone dumb from all the excitement? That's real progress. You actually managed some almost-clear sounds this time."

She wasn't wrong. My voice was the one thing that had carried me through thousands of other applicants back when I auditioned for the music academy.

So when I first realized I'd lost it, the sense that every hour of work had collapsed overnight nearly broke me completely.

It drove me to self-harm, to the edge of ending things more than once.

Everyone had watched it happen. And every single time, without exception, they'd taken photos of me at my most desperate to cheer my brother, Andrew Remick, up.

I ignored the stabbing pain in my chest, braced a hand against the wall, and pushed myself up to gather what had scattered across the ground.

Diane froze for a second when she realized I was ignoring her, then let out a short scoff.

She probably thought I was sulking again.

She was sure that, in a little while, once I'd talked myself out of it, I'd come crawling back to her side the way I always did.

But this time, I picked up the last item, stepped around them, and walked in the opposite direction from home.

I'd barely gone a few steps when my buddy, Michael Sykes, snorted with laughter behind me.

"Look at his shirt; it's practically shredded into a rag. This is too funny! We have to send it to Andrew; he'll die laughing."

"Shh, keep it down, or Brad'll hear you. He's so petty. If he finds out we're doing this to him, he'll go running to Andrew about it."

My whole body went rigid.

Funny. Petty.

So that was how the two people who'd taken up half my life summed me up.

I had thrown myself in front of Michael when he was being bullied, taken a knife to the small of my back, and still forced a "funny" face afterward so he wouldn't worry.

I had given up an important competition when Diane's father was gravely ill and the hospital kept stalling, and gone "pettily" scouring the whole city for evidence and pressuring the media until I dragged her father back from the brink of death.

And now, somehow, those exact things had become the labels pinned on me.

My phone buzzed again. Another message in the family group chat, everyone taking bets on how many days I'd cry this time.

Someone realized they'd sent it to the wrong chat and deleted it fast.

But not fast enough. I still caught Andrew's smug reply: [One day.]

One day.

The last time, Andrew had thrown my dog off the sixth floor.

I'd cradled its dying body, frantic, and dialed the emergency vet line.

But my face went red, my throat bled, and I still couldn't force out a single sound.

I'd pounded on Dad's door until I broke down, then dragged at Diane's and Michael's pant legs in hysterics.

In the middle of all that chaos, Andrew had cleared his throat once, softly.

And the game of freeze tag had started again.

Everyone froze exactly where they stood, completely unmoved by how helpless and desperate I was.

The dog convulsed in my arms and died soon after.

That day, I'd cradled its bloodied little body and cried at the door for an entire day before I finally passed out.

Just thinking about it made me shake all over, and I quickened my steps like I was running from it.

But the second I reached the mouth of the alley, a basin of cold water came crashing down on my head without warning.

I stood frozen, drenched clothes clinging to me, soaked through in an instant.