Chapter 1

A gust of icy wind swept past, and my chest tightened. Every breath felt like shards of glass in my lungs.

I clutched my chest, my knuckles turning white as I looked at my mom with pleading eyes.

"Mom—I mean, Ms. Wright." I quickly corrected myself, my voice shaking so hard I could hardly get the words out. "My chest hurts so much. Can I please sit this one out?"

The woman standing before me was my mom, Jennifer Wright, who also happened to be my homeroom teacher.

At that moment, she was busy signing an excuse slip for my class president, Quiana Sullivan.

Quiana's cheeks were rosy with health as she pouted. "Ms. Wright, it's that time of the month, and my back is just killing me. I don't think I can handle the run."

"Of course, dear. You need to take care of yourself during your cycle."

Mom offered her a warm, doting smile as she scribbled her signature on the slip. She even reached into her pocket, pulled out a piece of candy, and pressed it into Quiana's palm. "Go rest on the sidelines. And don't let yourself catch a cold."

But the moment she turned to me, her warm smile vanished, replaced by an icy stare.

She glanced at the excuse slip I held out but didn't take it. Instead, she let out a derisive snort and swiped her hand, knocking the paper straight to the ground. "Your chest hurts?"

Mom looked down at me, her eyes brimming with pure disgust. "You'd actually lie just to get out of a half-mile run? Do you really think I wouldn't know if my own daughter had a heart condition?

"Quiana has a delicate constitution, and she's on her period. That's why she can't handle this kind of physical strain. But you? You've had a clean bill of health since you were a toddler, and now you're telling me your chest hurts?"

"I'm not—"

I tried to lean down to pick up the slip, but a sharp spike of pain in my chest made me stumble. "I'm really not feeling well, and I…"

My hand instinctively went to my pocket, fingering a crumpled piece of paper—the diagnostic report I had picked up from the hospital yesterday.

The doctor's voice echoed in my head, grim and serious. "It's acute myocarditis. While it's not critical yet, you need rest. Absolutely no strenuous exercise, or you're at risk of sudden cardiac arrest."

Just as I was about to pull the report out to show her, Mom's sharp bark cut me off.

"Yvonne Simpson! Take your hands out of your pockets! Stand up straight! And stop calling me 'Mom' at school! It's precisely because you're my daughter that I have to be even stricter to avoid any appearance of favoritism!"

My classmates were all staring, their whispers closing in around me like a suffocating fog.

"There goes Yvonne again, faking it. She thinks she can slack off just because her mom's the teacher."

"Exactly. She's usually as healthy as a horse. There's no way she's actually sick."

Mom's frown deepened as she caught the comments. "Hear that? Even your classmates can see right through your little act."

She stepped closer, lowering her voice to a lethal whisper meant only for my ears.

"Quiana's dad is a high-ranking official from the Board of Education. I need his support if I want to win the 'Teacher of the Year' award at the end of the year. But what about you? What do you bring to the table? Besides being an utter embarrassment, what are you even good for?"

My hand froze around the paper in my pocket. My fingernails dug into the thin diagnostic sheet, nearly tearing through it.

So that was it.

It wasn't because I wasn't good enough or didn't work hard enough. It was simply because I didn't have a father in a position of power.

"Yvonne, I've taken you on morning jogs since you were a child. How could you possibly have a heart condition?"

Mom straightened up and raised her voice so the whole class could hear. "Don't embarrass me with your laziness! I won't have people saying I go easy on my own child!"

She enunciated every word, cold and merciless. "Unless you drop dead on that track today, you are finishing the race!"