Chapter 1

For as long as I could remember, Mom and Dad had put my sister Olivia in charge of my money.

They made it a rule: every single cent I spent had to be approved by Olivia first.

When I was eight, I ran a fever and asked for money to buy medicine.

Olivia said I only wanted the cash to buy candy, and she turned me down flat. The fever turned into pneumonia.

When I was ten, the family went rafting on the river. I couldn't swim, so I asked to rent a life vest.

Olivia said the raft was perfectly safe and I didn't need one. The raft flipped. I nearly drowned.

When I was eighteen, I got my acceptance letter from an Ivy League school and asked for tuition and living expenses.

Olivia turned me down again. She handed me five hundred dollars and shipped me off to a cheap cosmetology school in town.

Until today.

I started coughing up blood, and I wanted to go to West Bridge Medical Center.

Mom and my brother Ethan didn't even lift their heads. Their voices were flat with irritation.

"Ask Olivia."

Olivia sat on the couch, picking at a fifty-dollar box of imported Rainier cherries. She smiled. "Denied. You look fine. Quit faking."

The living room rang with their laughter. I went back to the storage room caked in black mold.

I clamped a hand over my mouth as I coughed. When I opened my palm, it was full of blood.

And in that moment, something in me actually eased.

This house—where even a single cent required approval—I didn't want to live in it anymore.

...

My lungs burned. I pressed my hand tight to my mouth as I coughed, careful not to make too much noise.

Olivia hated noise.

In this house, I had no right to ask for anything.

I pulled a scrap of sandpaper from the old toolbox and wiped my mouth. It was coarse, and it left my lips raw and stinging.

I had asked once, for the cheapest pack of tissues.

Olivia had denied it.

"What's wrong with using regular paper? Don't be so precious, all right?"

Meanwhile, she was using the joint allowance Mom gave the two of us to buy twenty-dollar boxes of disposable facial cloths.

Half of that money was supposed to be mine. And I couldn't even buy myself a pack of tissues.

I sank down against the wall.

My fingers brushed the plaster and came away smeared with a thick patch of blackish-green mold.

Olivia and I used to share a room. Then she decided she wanted her own space, and the storage room next to the basement got hastily converted into mine.

No windows. Just a rusted little exhaust fan. Every corner and every seam along the ceiling was rimmed with black mold.

Two years ago, when I first started feeling something wrong in my chest, I asked Mom if we could get a cleaning crew in to deal with the mold.

She had just looked at me, exasperated.

"Emily, how many times do I have to tell you? If you need money, you go to Olivia first."

I forced myself to Olivia's door.

She denied me.

"Get someone in to strip the mold? Then repaint the walls too? That's hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars. Please. You're still breathing, aren't you? Don't make trouble for me."

Meanwhile, the purse hanging from her shoulder was one I'd only ever seen in magazines.

So I stayed in that moldy little room for another two years. The coughing came more often. The blood came in bigger amounts.

I was still thinking about it when Mom's voice rang out from the living room.

"Emily, come out and get your allowance for the month!"

I cleaned the blood off myself and stepped out.

Two envelopes sat on the table.

One so fat it barely closed. The other so thin it clearly held only a few bills.

Ethan handed the thick one to Olivia, his eyes soft in a way that hurt to look at.

"Olivia, that's fifty thousand for you. Dance lessons, competition costumes, styling fees—it all comes out of this. If it's not enough, just tell me."

Olivia squealed and threw her arms around Ethan's arm.

"Ethan, you're the best!"

Mom ran a gentle hand over Olivia's hair. When she turned to me, the smile faded. She nodded at the thin envelope.

"Emily. Five hundred. Make it stretch."

I didn't reach for it.

Under the rules they had made, I wasn't allowed to hold my own money.

Sure enough, a second later, Olivia scooped up the five hundred.

"You want to spend anything, you fill out a request. Date, place, purpose—all of it, in writing. And stop walking around with that face on, like I owe you something."

"I want to use it now. I want to get a medical check-up."

I pulled the request form out of my pocket. I'd filled it in ahead of time, every field just the way she liked.

Olivia had already tucked the money away. She rolled her eyes at me.

"Denied. Like I told you—you're nineteen, you eat fine, you sleep fine. You don't need a check-up."

I looked at Mom. Hoping she might say one word for me.

She ignored my eyes. She picked up a cherry, held it to Olivia's lips, and said what she always said.

"Listen to Olivia."

Ethan was quiet for a couple of seconds. Then he stood up and gave my arm a light squeeze.

"Come on. The check-up really isn't necessary. You've always been healthy. Nothing's going to happen."

I didn't argue.

I used to push back. All it ever got me was stricter rules and more paperwork.

Eventually, I learned to swallow it.

Maybe one day, if Olivia was in a good enough mood, she'd toss me a few dollars.

I turned to go, and Olivia called after me.

She pulled out a hundred-dollar bill and held it out.

"Food money. For the week. Don't waste it."

I muttered something in reply and went back to my room.

A hundred dollars.

Together with the two hundred I had quietly squirreled away in my phone account over the years, it was just enough for one visit to West Bridge Medical Center.