Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 120240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
My vision blurs, and my fists clench at my sides. I want to tear off every pearl, shred this dress, slam a door hard enough to splinter the frame, and disappear.
“Erin,” my mother snaps. “Pull yourself together. You know this is necessary for the family’s survival.”
“Necessary for the family’s survival,” I repeat. “I thought the whole point of cozying up to the McCarthys was so their doctor might help Bridget. That’s why I went. You know that.”
The realization still claws at me, the way it gutted me when I was alone with Cavin. I felt sick then. I feel sick now.
My autonomy sold like livestock.
Given away to a man who once tormented me.
Gift-wrapped for a stranger.
“This is an all-time low.” The words slip out raw, jagged.
“Don’t you dare.” My mother twists around, her eyes venom. “Don’t you dare make this about you.”
I throw my hands up, a hollow laugh punching out of me. “Are you kidding me right now?”
The temperature in the car spikes. Disbelief curdles into fury, boiling over. “Make it about me? I’d give anything for Bridget. Anything.”
“Would you?” my mother snarls.
My father’s knuckles whiten on the steering wheel, but he doesn’t speak.
“Unlike you,” I spit. “I don’t look away when she’s not perfect. You lied about where she is because you can’t stand the truth.”
“That’s not why—”
“Enough!” my father roars, like thunder cracking through the car. He stabs a finger at me through the rearview mirror. “You do not speak to your mother like that.”
I feel seven years old again, silenced and helpless.
I bite down on my tongue until iron floods my mouth. I imagine reaching for the handle. Unlocking the door. Throwing myself out onto the highway. Concrete tearing skin. Bleeding, then… running. Far, far away, where no one knows who I am.
Silence stretches, brittle and jagged.
“When is the wedding?” I ask finally, defeated. “Can you tell me that much?”
“We don’t have a date yet,” my mother says. “But they suggested two months.”
“Two months?” My voice cracks. “Two months. Oh my god.”
“Well,” she says coolly, “there you go again. Always about yourself. If you can’t do it for yourself,” she snaps, “then do it for Bridget.”
Her words ignite me.
“Do it for my sister?” My tone goes deadly calm. “Where were you when she fainted at the sight of her own blood, and I drove her to the hospital? Where were you when the medicine wrecked her body, when she couldn’t eat for days, and I sat beside her with a bucket and a wet cloth? Where were you when she cried that she didn’t want to die, and I promised her she wouldn’t, because someone had to?”
My throat aches, and my face is wet.
I wipe at my eyes with shaking hands.
“Stop crying,” my mother snaps. “You’re smearing mascara everywhere.”
“I don’t fucking care,” I spit back. “And don’t tell me to watch my language.”
“Enough, Erin,” she says.
I shake my head. “How dare you pretend I’m the selfish one here? When I tracked every pill, every damn side effect, while you smiled at donor galas and charmed the board of directors? Where the fuck were you then? And where are you now?”
As always, my mother doesn’t soften. Doesn’t yield. I’m sobbing in the back of the car, and she doesn’t care.
“Then you’ll do this too,” she says. “You know exactly where I was. And don’t you dare pretend I don’t care. Who arranged this marriage, Erin? Who pulled everything together? Who sat with Caitlin McCarthy before anyone else dared to? Who carried it alone? Me. That’s who.”
Her voice shakes now, too, trembling on the edge of wrath. And that’s when I see the trap.
“You’ll do this too. Because you marrying Cavin McCarthy is the only way your sister lives.”
The words slam into me, colder than any knife.
If I don’t hand my life over to the only man I’ve ever truly hated, my baby sister dies.
Fury curdles into something colder—steel, resolve.
My eyes burn as tears spill unchecked. “The question isn’t if I’ll marry him. Of course I will. I’d bleed out on the altar if it saved her. I always do what needs to be done, don’t I?”
Because that’s what the eldest daughter does.
“This isn’t about the marriage, Mother. This is about you lying. About you using me as a bargaining chip to reach Bridget. Because you—”
I choke the words back before they leave my mouth. I don’t want to sound like a child, petty and unloved.
Because you love her more than you love me.
I force the thought down like poison, but the truth lingers.
I turn to the window, the glass smeared with my reflection. My face is streaked with tears, my hands clumsy and useless, as I wipe them away again.
If I have to marry Cavin McCarthy to save Bridget—fine. But I will not bleed myself dry for the McCarthys.