Chapter 4

I did not answer.

Rainwater trickled down the diagnosis report, soaking one corner of the doctor's handwriting.

When I got home, I heard things being smashed inside.

"That’s your debt! You borrowed the money, so you pay it back yourself!"

Dad roared, "If you didn't spend all your time gambling, would this family be drowning in debt?"

I pushed open the door. Mom and Dad turned toward me at the same time.

Mom glared at me.

"Where have you been? I called you, and you pretended you couldn't hear me?"

I clutched the diagnosis report and said nothing.

"Oh, so now you’re going to give us attitude?" She flung the coffee in her cup straight at me. The scalding liquid splashed across my chest, and my skin went numb almost instantly. "You enjoy watching us fight, do you?"

Dad grabbed my arm. "Can’t you at least say hello when you walk through the door?"

He yanked me so hard that I crashed into the coffee table. A sharp cramp twisted through my abdomen, and the paper slipped from my hand.

Mom bent down and picked up the diagnosis report, glancing at it casually.

"Severe depression?"

She held the paper up closer to her face, then suddenly let out a scornful laugh.

"Do you have such a hard life that you need to make yourself out to be some delicate little princess? How could you possibly have a disease like this?"

I reached for the paper. "Give it back."

Right in front of me, she tore the diagnosis report in half.

"You have too much free time on your hands. That’s why you sit around imagining things all day. If you have so much time to waste thinking about nonsense, why not find something useful to do?"

She kept tearing the paper until it was reduced to scraps.

"The doctor said I need to be hospitalized," I told her.

"And who’s going to pay for that?"

"We just transferred the $8,000 into my account, and now you want to use it for a hospital stay. Did you plan this all along?"

"That money was from my school," I protested.

"You still dare to bring up money?" She pointed at me. "Do you have any idea how much we've spent raising you for eighteen years?"

Dad released my arm and said calmly, "She just doesn't want to help pay off the family debt. She’s pretending to be sick to get sympathy."

Grandma Sheila stood nearby and slammed her palm against the table.

"She’s just like you, Melanie. Nothing but trash, right down to the bone! If she were really that sick, how could she keep coming in first at school?"

The moment Grandma Kelly heard that, she clutched her chest and burst into tears.

"John, you’re too useless to support your family, and now you've driven your daughter to this! The Larson family is going to destroy itself sooner or later!"

"Shut up!" Dad spun around. "If your daughter hadn't taught her to talk back all the time, would she be acting like this?"

"And who are you blaming now?"

All four of them started shouting at one another again. Their shoes ground the torn pieces of my diagnosis report into the spilled coffee.

I crouched down and picked up a small scrap of paper. Only half a line of text remained.

"Dad. Mom."

No one looked at me.

I grabbed the hem of Mom's pants.

"I really can’t take it anymore. I want to die so badly. Please, will you take me to the hospital?"

She looked down at me and gave a harsh laugh.

"If you’re so miserable, why don’t you just go die?"

The room suddenly fell silent. The sharp ringing in my ears stopped.

Dad turned his face away and lowered his voice.

"If you really want to die, do it somewhere else! Don't turn this house into a haunted place!"

I let go of Mom's pants, but she kept yelling.

"If you die, your father and I will get divorced. Without you, we could have a better life than anyone else."

I placed the scraps of paper on the table.

"I understand."

John frowned.

"What are you trying to pull now?"

"Nothing."

I picked up my backpack and walked out of the house.

Not one person came after me.

When I was eight, Mom and Dad took me to see the old, abandoned water tower in Zephyr City, each holding one of my hands.

That day, they told me that once I grew up, they would no longer have to force themselves to stay married for my sake.

Now I stood beneath the old water tower, pouring the sleeping pills I always carried with me into my palm.

The pills caught in my throat. I swallowed several times until the ringing in my ears finally faded.

Mom, Dad, no one would be keeping you together anymore.

You can get divorced now.

At six in the morning, a police car pulled up outside the Larson family's apartment building.

An officer pounded hard on the security door.

"Family of Whitney Larson, open the door immediately!"