They Lost Me the Day They Broke the Wishing Willow

When my mother saw the message that Chloe was coming back, she burst into tears of joy.

"Thank goodness. Chloe can finally come home."

My father wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "We've waited so many years for this day."

The candles on the birthday cake hadn't been blown out yet.

I froze. "Waited so many years? Since when?"

My mother looked up at me, her eyes flickering.

"Since you were seven, I suppose. That's when you stopped being able to catch up to her."

Starting from when I was seven, my mother always said I wasn't as good as my sister.

My sister learned everything fast.

At seven, she won the gold medal at a piano competition. At nine, she performed on stage, and an old professor in the audience stood up to applaud her.

The etiquette teacher used her as a model, saying her curtsy looked like a princess's.

On the wall of the foyer, her trophies and certificates filled an entire panel.

As for me, I practiced until my fingertips cracked and still hit wrong notes on stage.

I took etiquette lessons for a whole year, and my curtsy still couldn't achieve that perfect arc.

I stayed up until dawn studying, and my scores still couldn't touch a fraction of hers.

I thought if I just tried a little harder, moved a little faster, my parents would be a little happier.

But no matter how hard I tried, when they looked at me, they still shook their heads in disappointment.

"Still so far behind."

"Your sister could do this when she was your age."

My mother played videos of her for me, over and over.

Halfway through, she'd hit pause.

"See? This is how Chloe raised her wrist."

"Chloe never made the teacher repeat anything twice."

So I practiced even harder.

The pieces my sister played in those videos—I could play them with my eyes closed.

The competitions she won—I entered every single one.

At the city competition, I finally brought home a silver medal.

I held the certificate up to my mother.

She looked at it for a long time. Then tears suddenly fell from her eyes.

"Vivian, stop practicing."

"No matter how much you practice, you'll never catch up to her."

That night, I cried under my covers until dawn.

The next morning, I still got up at five and played through my sister's repertoire from beginning to end.

Later, it was Damian who pulled me out of that life.

In high school, he found me in the hallway, flipping through my sister's old diary, trying to find the secret to why she was good at everything.

He snatched it and threw it in the trash.

He said, "Vivian, you have your own life. You don't need to live as someone else's shadow."

Those words carried me for years. They carried me all the way to accepting his proposal.

But he'd also agreed to the wish.

"Damian, do you want her back too? Even if it costs me something?"

His Adam's apple bobbed. He looked away from my eyes.

"I looked into the Wishing Willow. The cost won't be that great."

"Chloe and I grew up together. She's your sister too. Don't you want her back?"

The birthday cake hadn't even been cut. My father had already gone upstairs and started clearing out my room.

I ran up to stop him. He shoved me aside.

"Chloe needs to live here when she comes back."

I looked into his eyes. "Then where do I go?"

He carried the last box of my books downstairs, his voice impatient.

"The storage room's been cleared out."

"You're sisters. Some things don't need to be divided so clearly."

My mother came in and took the family portrait off the wall.

It was the one taken on my tenth birthday with my parents. Chloe wasn't in it.

I grabbed the edge of the frame. "Mom, are you taking this too?"

She avoided my hand, her voice soft.

"Chloe would be sad to see it."

"Then what about me? If I disappeared from this world, would you be sad?"

My mother's smile stiffened.

"Don't say things like that. You're standing right here, aren't you?"

She turned and went downstairs. When she came back up, she was holding a photo of Chloe.

In the picture, my sister stood by the piano in a white dress, smiling gently.

My mother placed it in the center of the desk. Her eyes actually lit up.

"This room's been empty for too many years. Finally, it's filled again."

I watched all of this like a stranger renting a room.

Before dark, I moved the last of my things into the storage room.

The storage room had no windows. Just a dim yellow bulb.

My phone buzzed nonstop in my palm.

In the family group chat, my mother had just changed the name.

From "Family" to "Welcome Chloe Home."

My father sent a long string of firework emojis. He said he'd already ordered Chloe's favorite white roses.

My mother said to keep the cake frozen. Once Chloe was back, they'd celebrate my birthday then.

"There'll be plenty of chances later."

Not one person asked if the storage room was cold.

They were all counting down the days, looking forward to three days from now.

They didn't know that in three days, I would disappear from this world forever.