Chapter 4

I crouched and gathered the shattered pieces of the cameo.

A jagged edge sliced my fingertip. Blood seeped into the delicate carving.

You give up too much just to keep the peace,” she had told me. “When I’m gone, don’t let people take everything from you. Keep something for yourself.”

After Grandma died, there was no one left who saw me the way she had.

To everyone else, I was the daughter who could take care of herself.

The one who never got hurt, never felt lonely, and never needed to be chosen first.

The moment the pendant shattered, I knew.

The only love in this house that had ever belonged entirely to me had been taken without permission and broken at my feet.

“Natalie, I swear I didn’t mean to,” Emma sobbed.

Mom immediately pulled her into her arms.

“Don’t cry. It wasn’t your fault.”

Then Mom turned on me.

“Why did you have to come at her like that? Of course she panicked.”

“I didn’t. I was still two steps away when she let go.”

Ryan had followed Emma inside. He glanced at the broken pendant and sighed.

“Then get it repaired. People restore antiques all the time.”

“Mom took it without asking, and Emma broke it. Am I not even allowed to be upset?”

“And now it’s broken,” he said. “Making Emma cry won’t change that.”

Ethan pulled a tissue from his pocket and gently wiped the tears from Emma’s face.

No one noticed the blood running down my fingers.

I closed my fist around the broken cameo.

Every other time they hurt me, I had tried to explain.

I had believed that if I found the right words, they would finally understand.

But as I stood there bleeding, I realized I had nothing left to say.

I slipped the pieces into my pocket and headed for the door.

Mom’s voice followed me.

“Go ahead, then. Walk out. But don’t expect us to come running after you. Keep treating people like this, Natalie, and one day you’ll have no one left.”

I didn’t turn around.

She didn’t know I had no intention of coming back.

At the hostel, I packed the last few things I owned.

My flight to Seattle left the following morning.

I was finally leaving this place behind.

At one in the morning, my phone lit up with a message from Ethan.

Emma has been crying all night. How long are you going to keep this up?

More messages appeared.

Mom told me to come home and apologize.

Ryan said I was ruining what should have been an exciting week for Emma.

Dad reminded me that “family means knowing when to let things go.”

So I did.

I let go of all of them.

I blocked every number, zipped my cracked suitcase shut, and left for the airport before sunrise.

One wheel jammed against the edge of the baggage scale at check-in. A middle-aged woman behind me helped lift it onto the platform.

“Big move?” she asked, glancing at the one-way tag to Seattle.

I nodded.

“Your family couldn’t come see you off?”

A strange calm settled over me.

“They had someone more important to take care of.”

After the plane rose above the clouds, I took the broken cameo from my pocket.

That was when I finally cried.

Not because I missed them.

I cried for the girl I used to be—the one who believed that if she stayed quiet, worked harder, and asked for less, someone would eventually turn around and love her.

That girl was gone.

My family thought I would come home, apologize to Emma, and sleep in the storage room like I had always accepted everything else.

They had no idea I was nearly three thousand miles away.

And by the time they realized I wasn’t coming back, I would belong to no one but myself.