Chapter 3

I frantically checked my pockets.

Buried in the folds of my dress was a stubby, broken piece of a pencil.

I managed to rip a small piece of soft cardboard off the side of the heavy storage box.

My fingers were shaking so violently that the graphite tip snapped twice before I could even manage to write.

My hand was shaky as I scribbled crooked scrawl.

Wrong medicine.

Sophia messed up.

I knelt down and tried to slide the piece of cardboard through the thin gap beneath the locked door.

But the clearance was too low, the cardboard jammed halfway.

I used my fingernails, scraping them against the wood to shove it through millimeter by millimeter.

Suddenly, Dad's footsteps approached from the outside.

His black leather dress shoes stopped right in front of the door frame. The edge of my cardboard note was still sticking out.

Dad bent down slightly.

"Nova."

His voice softened just a fraction when he spoke my name.

"Just apologize to your mother. Once Leo is stable and out of danger, I will sit down and talk things through with you, okay?"

"Dad, look at the paper..." I gasped, but my raw throat couldn't form the words.

It came out as nothing but a faint wheeze.

Mom marched out of the master bedroom, Leo’s tiny winter jacket clutched in her hands.

"Are you still trying to coddle her? She behaves like this because she knows you're softhearted."

Dad straightened back up.

His leather shoe took a step back.

The heel came down directly onto the exposed corner of my cardboard note.

There was a faint, sickening scuff of rubber against paper.

The note was ground mercilessly into the gray dust bordering the hallway floorboards.

The pencil markings were instantly smeared into an illegible black smudge.

Mom grabbed her purse, her words firing in rapid succession.

"Let's go. The specialist is waiting at the hospital."

Dad hesitated. "Shouldn't we leave her something to eat?"

"She won't starve to death in one night," Mom snapped.

She walked toward the front door, then paused.

"If she doesn't admit she was wrong today, do not unlock that door. Otherwise, she'll actually end up severely hurting Leo down the road."

Dad sighed.

He picked up a wrapped pastry from the kitchen counter and placed it on the coffee table.

"Nova, Daddy left some food for you out on the table. You can have it when you come out."

I hammered on the door. He couldn't hear that I physically couldn't come out.

Mom was already nagging him from the entryway.

"Don't forget to double-lock the deadbolt. If she slips out and starts throwing a tantrum, she'll tell lies to the whole neighborhood and embarrass us again."

The key turned twice in the lock.

The front door slammed closed, plunging the apartment back into a heavy, suffocating silence.

I lay flat on the floor, staring blankly at the dirt-stained piece of cardboard trapped under the door.

The white chemical primer finally breached my shoes, soaking through the canvas tips.

The cardboard boxes around me completely deteriorated, their bases collapsing into the damp mess.

Outside, just a few feet away on the living room coffee table, sat the pastry. I could see it clearly through the gap.

I just couldn't reach it.

---

I stared at that pastry for what felt like hours.

The packaging was clear plastic.

Inside was a sweet brioche bun swirled with cream.

Dad knew it was my absolute favorite. Now, it just sat there on the coffee table.

If I breathed in deeply, I could catch the faintest ghost of its sweet scent.

But it was quickly overpowered by the chemical stench of the primer.

The fumes crawled along the floorboards, snaking into my nose and throat, choking out the air.

Outside, the day slowly changed into night.

The thin strip of light beneath the door turned from a bright white to a dull, ash gray.

My stomach growled loudly, twisting painfully.

Eventually, the hunger pangs grew too weak to make a sound.

Suddenly, the sharp beep-beep-beep of the electronic keypad echoed from the front door.

It wasn't Mom or Dad.

They didn't need to punch in the code to get in.

I snapped my head up. "Sophia!" I slapped my palms against the door. "Please, I'm in here!"

The front door clicked open.

Sophia walked straight into the kitchen first, then began rummaging through the living room cabinets.

A sharp clatter echoed through the apartment as plastic bottles knocked against one another.

I pressed my face to the floorboards, screaming through the crack.

"The medicine was wrong! Look at the bottles!"

She didn't hear me.

Then, her phone rang. Sophia picked up, her voice trembling violently. "Ma'am? I just got back to the apartment."

Mom's voice cut sharply through the phone's receiver, loud enough to leak into the quiet living room.

"Clear out the medicine cabinet immediately. The doctors at the hospital need to examine the remaining bottles."

Sophia went dead silent for a few agonizing seconds.

"Ma'am... that blue bottle this morning... I think... I think I might have accidentally grabbed it from the cleaning closet."

My fingers dug into the floorboards, scratching frantically at the gap.

She confessed.

She finally told the truth.

The line went completely silent.

When Mom spoke again, her voice had dropped to a dangerous, freezing register.

"What exactly are you trying to say?"

"I—I'm not entirely sure," Sophia stammered, panic taking over.

"The two bottles were sitting right next to each other and the labels are the exact same shade of blue.

“When I heard Leo suffocating, I just... I panicked, ma'am!"