Chapter 2

I sighed, went back to my room, and lay down on the bed.

It had always been like this.

When we played hide-and-seek, all I had to do was hide, and no one would ever come looking.

I'd come out on my own after dark, only to find they had long since finished dinner.

Nothing had changed.

I glanced over at the photo beside me.

In it I was still little, my father holding my hand, my mother smiling gently beside me, Marco standing behind me.

I missed those days.

I reached out and brushed my fingertips over Marco's face in the photograph.

All of Sicily knew how much my brother had doted on me when I was small.

He bought me anything and everything.

If I casually mentioned wanting a strawberry cake I'd seen in a bakery window, it would appear outside my bedroom door the next morning.

Once, my brother cared about me. But after Annie was born, their love for me dwindled until almost nothing remained.

Annie was pretty, and she knew exactly how to charm people.

Mom and Dad were only too happy to pour all their affection into her, spoiling her rotten.

I was plain. The sweet little dresses that looked lovely on Annie did nothing for me.

I was timid. I never fought for anything or tried to take it for myself.

That made it easy for them to ignore me altogether.

Someone knocked at the door.

William stood there with two jewelry boxes in his hands.

"Anna, look what I bought you."

He opened one. Inside was a strand of blue gemstones.

It shimmered under the light, dazzling and expensive.

Without thinking, I glanced at the other box. Inside was a rare pink diamond.

It was astronomically expensive and almost impossible to find.

I lowered my eyes and murmured, "Thank you."

He pressed the box with the blue gemstones into my hands, then immediately went looking for Annie. "Where's Annie? How come I haven't seen her today?"

I turned and set his gift on the table.

William looked around the house without finding her, then checked Annie's social media and saw her photos. He chuckled. "Ah, they went shopping."

He looked at me. "Anna, you shouldn't shut yourself away like this. A family shopping together—what could be better than that?"

I said nothing, just lowered my head with a bitter little smile.

Wanting something didn't mean it would ever be mine.

I'd once told William that I hated blue and loved pink more than anything.

He told me then that he'd remember it, that he'd never forget as long as he lived.

And yet here he was, giving me blue gemstones and giving Annie the pink diamond.

William used to be good to me too. Our families were close, and we grew up side by side. We'd been childhood sweethearts.

When we were little, whenever he came across something new and wonderful, he would buy it and bring it to me.

Until the day he came to my house and saw Annie.

After that, her name crept into every conversation we had.

He was always telling me how pretty Annie was, how adorable.

Once, he had said those same things about me to other people.

We sat on the couch with nothing left to say to each other.

When Annie still hadn't come home, William got up to leave.

At the door he asked, "Oh, right. Where are you planning to settle after you come of age?"

He was texting Annie even as he said it.

"Annie says she wants to live by the sea. What about you?"

"Your mother told me a while back that you don't have much money and only want an apartment."

"An apartment's fine. As long as we're in the same city, we'll still see each other."

I didn't answer. I picked up my phone, opened a real estate site, and chose a town nearly two thousand miles away.

I paid the deposit on the spot.

When no reply came, William glanced up at me. "It's just an apartment. Is it really worth agonizing over this much?"

I locked my phone. "I'm not agonizing."