Chapter 3

Dad stood and marched toward the door. I shrank into the corner, unable to stop my body from shaking.

He meant every single word he said.

Once, Melody hit a shuttlecock up into a tree, so I climbed up to get it back for her. But as I was climbing down, I stepped on a branch, and it scratched her face by accident.

Melody screamed and cried, saying that I had hit her.

Dad didn't even ask what happened. He broke off the branch and beat me with it. He hit me so hard that he broke my arm.

The pain was still fresh in my memory, and I instinctively tried to hide.

But a moment later, I came back to my senses and realized he couldn't hurt me anymore. After all, I was already dead.

Dad stormed toward the beach, yelling my name. "Sophia Judd! Sophia! Where the hell are you? Get out here right now!"

I was standing right there.

"You still dare to hide?" Dad shouted. "How dare you talk about running away from home? When I find you, I'll break your legs!"

Mom hurried after him. The waves grew rougher, and the sky turned dark as if a storm was coming.

"Enough. Let's find her first," Mom said. "It's about to rain heavily. Don't let anything bad happen."

She then yelled into the distance, "Sophia, stop hiding. I can see you! Come back and apologize to Melody. Then this will be over!"

Mom kept calling out, but she naturally never got a response from me.

Her tone became more impatient. "Sophia, that's enough! How long are you going to keep this up? If you still won't come out, we won't care if you die out here!"

I wanted to go back, but I didn't have a chance to anymore.

Since I still didn't show up, Melody kept making things worse.

"Sophia is really something," she said. "Why is she so stubborn and hot-tempered? Mom, Dad, don't be mad. I'll go look for her again."

Just as she was about to leave, Mom grabbed her hand. "Don't baby that ungrateful brat. Let's go. She wanted to run away, right? If she dies out there, she has no one to blame but herself!"

Rain began to fall. Mom and Dad shielded Melody as they hurried back to the hotel.

In reality, I no longer existed. I was just a wandering soul. But at that moment, I truly felt the cold rain pass through my body. My heart ached so badly.

The rain poured down, and the whole world seemed to be swallowed by darkness. The vast, dark sea closed in around me until I disappeared beneath it.

…

Knowing no one could see me, I drifted into the hotel and into Mom and Dad's room.

Mom was drying Melody's damp hair. I moved closer, overlapping my body with Melody's.

I wanted to borrow some of that warmth. I wanted to pretend for a moment that I could feel this gentle motherly love.

Mom's hands stopped for a second. She looked out the window, a hint of worry still on her face.

"Do you think something really happened to Sophia?" she asked.

The moment Melody saw that Mom was still worried about me, her eyes flashed with hatred and jealousy.

"Sophia's best at playing the victim," she said. "Once, she cried her eyes out in front of the school bully and told him I was picking on her. He got a group of kids to corner me in an alley. They… they even tore my clothes off."

"What?" Mom slammed her hand on the table and shot to her feet. She grabbed Melody by the shoulders. "Why didn't you tell me about this?"

Melody sobbed, "I just thought it was better not to make things worse. I didn't want to ruin Sophia's relationship with you and Dad."

Instantly, the last bit of worry in Mom's eyes was replaced by anger. She held Melody gently, and for the rest of the night, she never mentioned me again.

…

The next morning, they were woken up by a commotion.

When they opened the door, a man hurried past them toward the hotel entrance, talking loudly on his phone.

"Did you hear? Something happened at the beach. They found a body!" he exclaimed.

"Oh my goodness, did they drown?" someone replied. "I heard the body was totally bloated."

A body?

At that moment, Mom's heart sank. She grabbed Dad's hand and asked, "Do you think… Could that be Sophia? Could something have actually happened to her?"

Dad glared at her.

"Impossible!" he snapped. "That brat is too clever. How could she drown? Even if it's her, it's just another one of her tricks!"

Even though he said that, they still followed the crowd running to the beach. Then, through the crowd, they spotted the dark navy swimsuit I had worn to the beach.