Chapter 2

I hugged the urn tighter.

Dad used to wrap me in a warm coat. Now I was the one keeping him warm.

My phone rang. Mom's impatient voice came through.

"Where are you? Ethan and Hen want Nathan to perform for them. Hurry up, or Ethan's birthday will be over."

My numb fingers tightened around the phone. “Excuse me?"

Mom sounded as if she'd misheard me. “What did you just say?"

"I said, excuse me?" My voice trembled. "Dad is an opera singer, not some entertainer for hire. Why do they get to order him around whenever they feel like it? He's not some circus monkey."

"Adrian! Is that how you speak to your mother?" Her voice turned sharp.

"I should be the one questioning you. Your father made you leave that comment on Ethan's social media page, didn't he? Only petty men like him make such snide remarks.

"Ethan felt guilty about that all day. If he hadn't stopped me, I would've dealt with your father already. What's wrong with asking Nathan to perform for them? Isn't that what he was trained for?"

Then came the threat. "You have ten minutes. If you ruin Ethan's birthday, I'm cutting your allowance again."

A tear slipped down my face. "But, Mom… today's Dad's birthday too."

Silence was Mom's only response.

I gripped the phone so tightly it nearly cracked. "Every year, you buy gifts for Ethan and Henry. Dad shares the same birthday as your so-called first love, too. It's been 18 years. Have you ever remembered it even once?

"Dad never blamed you. But I remembered everything."

The line fell silent again.

When she finally spoke, there was the faintest hint of apology in her tone. "Fine. This is on me. No wonder Nathan dragged you into this little act.

"Have him bring you home. Ethan and Henry probably won't finish their cake anyway. You two can help clean up the leftovers."

"Samantha Kelly!" I finally snapped. "Is that all Dad and I deserve? Their leftovers?"

"Adrian Sinclair!" she sounded angrier than I'd ever heard her. "Have you forgotten I'm your mother? You don't get to speak to me like that!"

"So what?" Tears streamed down my face, leaving cold, stinging tracks on my cheeks due to the freezing wind. "I don't have a mother who refused to spend 2,000 dollars to save my dad's life."

"Excuse me?"

"2,000 dollars. That's all it would've taken to stop the bleeding. You spent hundreds of thousands celebrating that father and son pair, but you refused to spend even a fraction of it to save a life…"

"Enough!" Mom finally lost her patience.

"Are you serious right now? Ethan lost his wife at a young age and had to raise a child on his own while struggling in the entertainment industry. Do you know how hard that is? Why is Nathan being so dramatic?

"And how much money have you and Nathan drained from me all these years? I know exactly what the two of you are after. Pretending someone died just to get money? Fine. Then stay dead forever. I don't want to see either of you again."

And she hung up.

A second later, a notification from the bank appeared. The account Dad and I shared had been frozen.

That was Mom's favorite punishment. Whenever either of us angered her, she'd freeze our bank account and our bank cards.

I'd rather starve than beg her, so every time, Dad was the one who swallowed his pride and pleaded to Mom to get the money for my tuition and living expenses.

Now he was gone. The only person who would ever beg her for me was gone, too.

I wiped away my tears, scooped up a handful of snow, and stuffed it into my mouth to dull the hunger.

Fine. Mom could keep her money. I didn't need her to survive.

The iciness cleared my head just enough for me to notice someone holding out a piece of bread.