Chapter 2

The next morning, I went back home to grab my passport.

The ruined birthday cake was still sitting on the coffee table in the living room.

The frosting had collapsed.

The half-burnt candles were scattered across the table.

My eighteenth birthday had ended in such a pathetic, messy way.

The cake didn't even have the privilege of being put in the fridge.

Mom was sitting nearby, holding a stack of papers. She called out to me, "Emily, you're back. Good. Hailey’s college application files are a mess. Go help her organize them."

Hailey’s application folders took up half the dining table.

In the past, I was always the one who sorted them out for her.

"I'm leaving next week. I don't have time," I said.

Mom looked up at me. "What's the big deal? It’ll only take you a morning."

"I have my own things to pack." I refused her again. I was done being everyone else's stepping stone.

Hailey walked over, holding a Polaroid camera. She smiled sweetly, as if nothing had happened the night before. "Emily, don't be mad. Let's take a picture together before you leave."

She pointed the lens at me.

I raised my hand to block the camera.

"I don't want to."

Hailey blinked. "Just one picture."

"You take pictures every year," I said calmly. "And on my eighteenth birthday, I couldn't even keep a single piece of my own cake."

When I was sixteen, Mom promised to take me for a professional birthday photoshoot.

I had picked out my dress two weeks in advance.

I had saved dozens of reference photos on my phone.

But right before we were about to leave, Hailey got into a fight with a classmate and cried, refusing to change her clothes.

The shoot was canceled.

Dad said we would make it up to me later.

After that, Hailey got her birthday photoshoots every year.

Tyler got photos celebrating his sports tournaments.

My parents got photos from their vacations.

But if you flipped to the end of the family album, I barely existed.

And when I did, I was always standing in the far corner.

Or I was the one holding the camera.

Tyler walked out of his room and overheard us. "Do you really have to bring up the past? Mom and Dad said they’d make it up to you. Hanging onto this is just petty."

"Hanging onto this?" I sneered. "You guys have never kept a single promise."

"Alright, that’s enough," Tyler said, frowning. "Stop acting like this family owes you the world."

"This family doesn't owe me anything," I said. I walked over to the coffee table and ripped the lid off the cake box.

"But you don't get to take away my things anymore. Not my cake, and not my future."

I turned my gaze to Hailey.

"Hailey, you saw my name on the cake yesterday, didn't you?"

She flinched, remaining silent.

Mom immediately stepped in front of her. "What do you want, Emily?! Do you want her to get down on her knees and beg for your forgiveness?!"

"I didn't ask her to kneel. I just asked her a question. She saw it, so why didn't she tell him to stop?"

It was always like this. The moment it involved Hailey, everything became my fault.

Hailey lowered her head, tears finally spilling over. "I... I thought Mom ordered it. I said I didn't know."

"If you had known I ordered it, would you have stopped him?"

She didn't answer. She guiltily looked away.

I let out a soft laugh. "No, you wouldn't have. Because since we were kids, whatever you wanted, everyone handed it to you. You're just used to taking."

Tyler suddenly grabbed my arm. "Emily, that's enough!"

I violently shook him off.

"Don't touch me."

"If you guys want to keep playing happy family, leave me out of it!"

The doorbell rang.

My best friend, Nora, was standing outside, holding a checklist for my student visa.

Taking in the tense atmosphere inside, she didn't ask what had happened.

She just took my duffel bag.

"Let's go. We need to print your documents."

Mom hurried to the doorway.

"Emily, come back for dinner tonight."

I put on my shoes.

"No."

"I booked a hotel."

Dad finally looked up from his iPad.

"A hotel? Is this house not big enough for you anymore?"

I looked at him.

"It is. But staying at a hotel is just easier. It saves us from making each other uncomfortable."

No one in the living room answered.

Nora pressed the elevator button.

Before the doors closed, I heard Mom speaking to the others inside.

"Just let her cool off for a couple of days."

"Once her visa is processed, she'll have to come back to pack her things anyway."