Chapter 3

I ended up in the kitchen anyway.

I set a pot of soup on the stove and turned on the burner. I stood there watching it heat up, the steam stinging my eyes until they burned, and I thought about my junior year of high school.

My stomach had cramped so badly I couldn't stand up straight. I called Mom, and she told me to stop being dramatic. She said if I just toughed it out, it would pass.

I went to the school nurse by myself, and when the nurse asked where my parents were, I told her they were busy. They weren't busy. They just didn't want to come.

The soup slowly filled the kitchen with a warm smell. The kettle was on beside it, heating water for tea.

I leaned against the kitchen doorframe and pulled out my phone to check the time, but the first thing I saw was Mom's latest post on her feed.

The photo was taken in the hospital hallway. Hannah was leaning against Drew's shoulder with a cooling strip on her forehead. Mom had captioned it, "When your baby gets sick, a mother's heart just aches."

Dad had liked it.

My finger hovered on the screen. Before I could back out, I scrolled down and saw that Drew had posted something new too.

It was a photo of a store display case showing the newest Polaroid model, with a neatly wrapped gift box sitting next to it. His caption read, "A get-well present for the kid, plus a belated graduation gift."

I stared at the words "graduation gift" for a long time.

Hannah had taken her exams this year, and her scores were barely enough to get accepted. But the day the results came back, the whole family celebrated like it was a holiday.

Mom said she had tried her best. Dad said getting in was all that mattered and they shouldn't put pressure on her. Drew even ordered a cake.

But two years ago, when I got into my school in Alderton, I had scored high enough to get into any school I wanted. There was no cake that night and no gift.

Mom just said, "Good, you got in."

Dad said, "It's far, but that's fine. Just don't pick somewhere too expensive."

Drew was even more blunt. "Just come back for the holidays. No point wearing yourself out on the road."

I had told myself at the time that they just weren't good at expressing it. But now, every single photo on their feeds was telling me otherwise.

They knew how to express it. They knew how to celebrate, how to worry, and how to treat someone's minor illness like the end of the world. It was just that someone was never me.

A sudden hissing sound snapped me back. The pot was boiling over. I dropped my phone and scrambled to turn off the stove, and the scalding soup splashed onto the back of my hand. I sucked in a sharp breath.

I looked down at the patch of skin already turning red and almost laughed. They wanted me to make soup for my sister, and it didn't cross anyone's mind that the person making it still had a fever of her own.

Right then, my phone buzzed again. It was a message from my advisor.

"Claire, the research group schedule got moved up. If it works for you, report back to Alderton tomorrow."

I stared at those two lines, and something clicked into place. I didn't want to wait until the semester started. I wanted to leave now. I didn't want to stay in this house a single day longer, watching them remind me over and over again how little I mattered here.

I turned off the kettle and went to my room to pack. I didn't have many clothes, so it didn't take long. Then, I pulled open the drawer where I kept my savings, the money I had been putting away little by little since high school.

All of it came from scholarship stipends, part-time job earnings, and holiday cash from relatives—1,300 dollars in total. I had never touched it. That money was my ticket back to school and my living expenses, and more than that, it was my way out.

But the moment I opened the drawer, I froze. It was empty. I tore through every book and every pocket in that drawer, and there was nothing. My hands started to shake.

Before I could even begin to process it, the front door opened. Mom, Dad, and Drew walked in with Hannah, and the second she stepped through the door, she held up a brand-new Polaroid camera right in my face.

"Do you like it, Claire?"