Chapter 3

I was ten years old the first time I met Vivian... and Nolan and Eric trailing behind her.

She walked over to me and gently pinched my cheek. "Ella, from now on, I'm going to be your big sister."

Then she introduced me to her two little shadows. "Nolan and Eric—they're twins. Isn't that amazing? They're going to be really good friends with you."

That year, my father Richard married Vivian's mother, Linda.

We became a family.

My father's and stepmother's loving gazes followed Vivian constantly. When they saw her take my hand, they couldn't help but praise her: "Vivian is such a good girl."

I believed every ounce of kindness she showed me.

That night, my father and stepmother left for their honeymoon. Vivian threw all my belongings out of my room. "Don't live in my house!"

An angel by day, a demon by night—she slapped me across the face. "I hate you! And I hate your father! Get out!"

I covered my face and wept quietly.

My father wasn't oblivious to the friction between Vivian and me.

But his priority was never to stand up for me—it was to maintain the fragile peace that held this blended family together.

Linda needed an understanding husband. Vivian needed a doting father. And family harmony required a daughter who was always sensible.

Naturally, I was that "sensible daughter."

I saw clearly how things worked in this house.

I tried to shrink my presence down to nothing. I naively believed that if I was good enough, all the trouble would leave me alone.

But Vivian had no intention of letting me fade into the background.

She'd studied art since childhood. Emotional expression was her gift—and her weapon.

She knew exactly when to let the right amount of sadness show. She never had to argue. A slight furrow of her brow, a soft "I'm fine," and she could instantly capture all the attention and sympathy in the room.

And I was forever the "unstable element" who made things awkward.

Nolan and Eric only ever stood behind Vivian. The way they looked at me was often coldly appraising—Why are you always here? Why does your presence always seem to make Vivian less happy?

I kept yielding, kept enduring. I told myself that once I grew up, I could finally escape this suffocating house.

Then came the year Vivian turned twenty. One day, out of nowhere, she was unusually affectionate with me, asking me to fetch a painting from her room—one she was planning to give her teacher.

I pushed open the door. The painting had been torn to shreds.

I stood frozen. My blood ran cold.

The door burst open behind me. Vivian stormed in with a crowd of people.

In that moment, I knew it was over.

The instant she saw the ruined painting, tears spilled down her cheeks. "Ella... why would you... do this to me?"

I opened my mouth, but no defense would come.

Nolan and Eric's eyes blazed with fury. "Ella, no matter how jealous you are of Vivian, you can't destroy something she worked so hard on!" they said in unison.

Vivian broke down sobbing in front of everyone, pouring out years of supposed repression and injustice, tracing the root of her depression directly back to me.

She said this family was suffocating her. She said her talent and her dreams had been maliciously destroyed by me.

The next day, she left the country.

And I was left behind to bear all the blame and all the cold stares alone.

That was my most hopeless time.

No one in the house would speak to me. Richard's sighs. Linda's averted eyes. Even the air seemed frozen with silent condemnation.

Everyone said I was the one who drove Vivian away.

I thought Nolan and Eric would hate me most of all.

But just when I was at my most isolated and helpless, Nolan's attitude shifted in a subtle way.

When Richard was about to lash out at me, Nolan calmly cut in. "We don't have all the facts yet. There's no need to rush to blame Ella."

I couldn't help but gravitate toward him.

Nolan became the only light in my world.

He listened. He soothed. He defended me.

I fell for him, one step at a time.

We grew closer and closer, until finally we were married.

In the two years after the wedding, all those hot-and-cold moments, all those contradictions that kept me awake and set my heart racing erratically, that eventually made me dependent on medication just to maintain some semblance of calm—

Through it all, I kept making excuses for him, because I was too afraid to lose that one source of light.

Only now did I finally understand.

What I thought was salvation was nothing but a crueler game.

What I thought was a safe harbor was just another cage, carefully constructed.

Lying in that hospital bed, I let the corner of my mouth twitch upward.

I picked up my phone. My finger scrolled through my contacts and stopped on a number I'd almost never dialed.

"Ella." My mother Catherine's voice came through.

"Mom, I want to leave this place. Leave this country." My voice broke as I spoke.

The day my parents divorced, Catherine stood at the front door with her suitcase. She touched my face and said, "Your father and I are divorced, but you will always be my child. If you ever face something you can't handle alone, come find me. I will always love you, sweetheart."

"All right. Come to me, Ella," she said.

There was no point wasting any more time on him.

In three days I would be leaving this country for good.

It was over.