Chapter 2

Victor had been tiny and frail from birth, so my parents poured all of their attention into him.

When I fell and bloodied my knee, they would still be holding Victor, smiling at him as though nothing else mattered.

Growing up, the thing I heard most from my mother was that I had to put my brother first.

When I was ten, my parents sought out a ritual master who claimed he could bind Victor's fate to mine.

They forced me through a grotesque blood-marking ritual and made me drink something bitter he had blessed.

After that day, I always felt as though something foul clung to my skin, and I became quieter and quieter at school.

No matter how desperately I tried to please my parents, they barely looked at me.

When Victor said I did not deserve good clothes, I stopped getting anything new. I wore only the things he had stained, torn, or discarded.

On my twelfth birthday, I cooked dinner and made my own cake, then waited at home until after midnight for the parents who had promised to celebrate with me.

Only after seeing Victor's social-media photos did I understand they had not been busy with work at all; they were celebrating with the son they considered their only real child.

So what was I?

I cried while forcing down piece after piece of cake as though I could swallow every humiliation with it.

That was when I learned cake could taste bitter enough to make my whole body shake.

When I was fifteen, a violent pain suddenly seized my leg while I was playing basketball, and I collapsed in front of a girl I secretly liked.

I covered my face because I couldn't bear to meet her eyes.

Later, my father called and told me Victor had been in a car crash after drinking.

My parents blamed me for not getting to him quickly enough, yet somehow they had forgotten that Victor barely felt pain at all.

The ritual they had put me through at ten had moved every pain meant for Victor into my body.

And still my parents blamed me for not doing enough for him.

A classmate helped me reach the hospital. The moment my father saw me, he struck me across the face so hard my whole body trembled.

"Is this how you take care of your brother? What was the point of raising you?"

Under the horrified eyes of my classmates, shame burned across my face.

My father forced me to my knees in front of Victor.

Victor smiled brightly. "Good boy, Julian."

I had once believed that no matter how hard my life became, I could endure it. I had survived humiliation, contempt, and pain more times than I could count.

I thought I had become strong.

Then I collapsed again. My parents woke me, ignored my protests, and pushed me toward a private hospital room.

"Your brother needs a kidney. You have to do this. What else is he supposed to do? Be good, Julian. When it's over, I'll make it up to you."

For the first time in my life, I screamed at my mother and refused, but both of my parents forced me forward, and the private clinic they had chosen never once asked whether I agreed.

When the operating-room doors closed, something inside me died long before my body did.

Much later, I stared at the bandaged surgical wound and couldn't make myself speak.

My mother brought soup she had made herself, but without saying a word to me, she hurried into Victor's room.

I confronted them afterward.

My parents only hardened their faces and called me ungrateful.

"If you hadn't taken everything from your brother in the womb, why would he have suffered all this? You owe us. This is repayment."

But Mom, Dad, the suffering had never stopped for me. You hated me for being healthy when I was little, and now there was almost nothing healthy left.

Later, after I collapsed and was brought back to the hospital, I accepted the new medical report with shaking hands and whispered to myself.

That's right. I hadn't been healthy for a long time.