Chapter 2

Back in my room, I finally let myself breathe.

Looking at myself — whole, unharmed — my feelings twisted into something I couldn't name.

I'd been called a jinx my whole life. They said my birth killed my grandmother. That at three years old, I caused my father's accident on the highway.

My mother couldn't take the whispers anymore. She packed us up and left, just the two of us, and came to New York.

She worked three jobs so I could have a better life.

It didn't take long. The exhaustion wore her down, and one day she simply didn't wake up.

I didn't understand what that meant then.

I only knew I couldn't wake my mother no matter how hard I tried, and I went two days without eating, alone in that apartment.

On the third day, a line of luxury cars pulled up outside our building.

A young man in a suit got out and dropped to one knee in front of me.

His eyes were full of something that looked like heartbreak. He pulled me — half-starved and barely conscious — into his arms.

"Sophia, will you come with me?"

It wasn't until I was older that I understood what had happened. My mother was gone. Keita had taken me in.

I asked him why.

He told me that when he was fifteen, enemies had kidnapped him and left him in the countryside. My mother — a woman with nothing but her bare hands — had pulled him out of that field and saved his life.

The Keita family had spent years trying to track her down.

By the time they found my hometown, she had already moved away.

They followed the trail all the way back to New York.

But my mother was already gone. She never got to see anyone return the favor.

So Keita took me in.

He treated my mother like an older sister, and had me call him Uncle.

I never imagined that, on the day he died, he would tell me he regretted it.

Maybe I really was the jinx they all said I was.

Everyone who got close to me ended up hurt.

Then why did fate send me back?

Someone like me, a walking curse — I should have just stayed dead.

Maybe the only reason I was given a second chance was to finally take my life into my own hands.

I stayed at school all the way through Sunday evening.

By then, I figured Keita had gone to celebrate Louise's birthday.

So I felt safe going home.

I didn't expect Keita to be there.

He was sprawled on the couch, reeking of alcohol, completely out of it.

I walked over and shook his shoulder. Nothing.

Strange.

Wasn't he supposed to be at Louise's, falling into bed with her?

Or had they already...

Never mind. None of that was my business anymore.

I called for the housekeeper, and together we helped Keita back to his room.

I had no idea how much he'd drunk. In my memory, Keita had only ever been this far gone once — the day Louise died. He'd drowned himself in alcohol trying to kill the grief.

Louise was his first love. She'd gone abroad to study a few years back.

I used to see a photo of the two of them on his nightstand.

I glanced over at it now. There was only a lamp there. Nothing else.

Keita was a man who loved deeply.

After Louise died, he brought me to her grave every year on the anniversary of her death. He would press my head down in front of the headstone and force me to apologize.

But it wasn't my fault she died. So why should I apologize?

I would rather have died than bow my head, and we stayed at that standoff for ten years. Keita's hatred never faded.

Then came another anniversary. The sky was gray and it was raining hard.

Keita insisted on making the drive to the cemetery, nearly forty miles away.

And then the accident happened.

When the crash hit, Keita threw himself over me without thinking.

I walked away with minor injuries. He didn't walk away at all.

His parents, shattered with grief, threw me out.

Now I stood looking at Keita's flushed face, and all I could manage was a bitter smile.

I turned to go back to my room. Keita's hand shot out and grabbed my wrist.

Drunk as he was, his grip was iron.

I lost my footing and stumbled into him.

Keita half-opened his eyes and pulled me against his chest.

Through the thin fabric of his shirt, I could feel the heat radiating off him.

"Don't leave me..."

I lay there against him, listening to his heartbeat pound like a drum.

"I'm sorry..."

His grip didn't loosen, and he kept murmuring things that didn't quite make sense.

Drunk people are the hardest to reason with.

Maybe I just wanted one last moment of his warmth.

I stopped fighting and let him hold me.

Slowly, the tiredness crept in, and with Keita's arms around me, I fell asleep.

It's just a hug, I told myself. Nothing will come of it.