Chapter 4

"Drew bought it for me," Hannah said. Then, she pulled a stack of cash out of her bag and told me with a beaming smile, "Mom also gave me 1,300 dollars as a reward for being so brave about my shot today."

The number—1,300 dollars—drove into me like a nail. I looked up and stared hard at Mom. "Did you take the money in my drawer?"

The living room went dead quiet. The smile on Mom's face stiffened for a second, and she instinctively looked away from me. At that moment, I already knew the answer.

My drawer had always been locked, and nobody knew where I kept the key except her. She was the only one who could have taken it.

I didn't look away. "Did you take it?"

Mom reacted like I had hit a nerve, her voice going sharp. "Look at you, Claire, all grown up now. Your family just walked in the door, and the first thing you do is interrogate your own mother like she's some kind of thief?"

She didn't explain where the money came from. She just doubled down on me being difficult.

Hannah's eyes turned red right away. "Do you just hate seeing me happy? I got sick, and Mom felt bad for me, so she gave me a reward. How does that make it your money? If you wanted a reward, you could have just asked. Why would you accuse Mom like that?"

Drew stepped in front of her immediately, his face dark. "Claire, do you have to be this petty? Hannah just got back from the hospital, and you're making her cry over money? Can you act like an older sister for once?"

Dad spoke up with a cold expression, "Your money? You eat under this roof, you sleep under this roof, and you're already keeping tabs? Forget whether your mother even took it. Even if she did, she spent it on your sister. What's the problem?"

My hands were shaking with anger, but I forced the words out through clenched teeth. "Give me my money back. That's my bus fare back to Alderton and my living expenses."

They hadn't given me a single dollar since I started college. Every bit of that 1,300 dollars was money I had saved on my own.

I stepped forward to grab the stack of cash. Hannah burst into tears, and Drew smacked my hand away. "Enough! You're making a scene like this over a little money? Do you have no shame?"

The back of my hand was already burned from the soup. When he hit it, the pain flashed so hard that my vision went black. But Mom's only concern was pulling Hannah into her arms.

"Don't be scared, sweetie. I'm right here."

I stood there and watched all of them huddle around Hannah to comfort her. I was the one who had been robbed and the one who was hurt, and somehow, I had ended up as the villain.

After that day, I locked myself in my bedroom and stopped talking and eating. When the glass of water on my nightstand ran empty, I didn't even bother to refill it. And they went on as though I didn't exist.

The only acknowledgment I got was Mom yelling through my door a couple of times. "That temper of yours keeps getting worse! Who's going to put up with that? When you get hungry enough, you'll come out and apologize."

I didn't bother answering and just buried my face in my pillow. My fever still hadn't fully broken, and I was drifting in and out of a haze.

On the third day, my door opened. I looked up, and it was Dad. He was holding a brown paper envelope with money inside, and my eyes welled up the moment I saw it.

For one ridiculous second, I felt something like hope. I thought that maybe Dad had finally realized how unfairly I had been treated, that maybe he was here to give me my money back. After all, before Hannah was born, he used to love me too.

When I fell, he would scoop me up. When I came home with a first-place grade, he would put me on his shoulders and carry me to the candy store. Back then, Hannah hadn't come along yet, and I was the one he adored.

Dad walked up to me, set the envelope on the desk, and spoke in a low, heavy voice, "There's 1,300 dollars in here."