Chapter 2

This time, when they told me their plan, I nodded.

My mother exhaled. "So you are okay with Sophie staying?"

"I will not stop it."

My mother mistook my calm for growth. “I knew you would understand once you stopped making everything about yourself. The program did exactly what we hoped.”

She forgot why they had signed me up. It started the night after my seventeenth birthday.

They had promised to take me to a Broadway premiere. I waited in my dress. They went to a charity gala instead and never called. The next day, my mother apologized with a necklace I had once admired. When a business associate's daughter complimented it, my mother handed the box right over.

She thought a duplicate would fix things. I refused.

"I do not want a replacement."

"It is identical."

"But the original was mine. You gave it away without asking."

"She is twelve. You are going to embarrass everyone over jewelry?"

"You embarrassed yourself by giving away something that was not yours."

That set her off. “I bought it, and I can buy another. No matter how much we give you, you always find one thing to turn into proof that we’re terrible parents.”

“I wouldn’t have to look for proof if you didn’t keep giving it to me.”

My mother saw a spoiled child. My father saw someone who needed to learn that the world does not always give you what you want. Not long after, they enrolled me in Swapped Lives.

That fight was never about a necklace. It was about them making decisions about me without consulting me.

After the conversation, I picked up my luggage. My mother stopped me.

"Eva, one more thing. Sophie has been staying in your room for the past three months. The social worker suggested keeping her environment stable. We would like her to continue there for now. We have set up the guest room on the third floor for you."

Even having lived this before, my chest tightened. Sophie had been there three months, and my parents called it stability. I had lived in that room for seven years. I had chosen the furniture with my grandmother. The window looked out onto her rose garden.

Sophie spoke up. “I can move. Eva just got back. She needs her space.”

My mother looked at me. “Eva, you’ve had that room for seven years. Sophie has never had anything stable. Surely you can give her this one thing without turning it into another fight.”

“You don’t have to move.” I walked into the room, opened the closet, and took out my grandmother’s jewelry box and personal papers. I left everything else.

My mother watched me. “You don’t have to clear everything out. This is only temporary.”

“I’m only taking the things that were actually mine. You’ve already decided what happens to the rest.”