Chapter 8

• I jolted, scrambled up from the floor, and pulled the bunny tight against my chest.
• Mom stood in the doorway. She’d changed into black, her face drained of color.
• Her hollow gaze landed on the stuffed bunny in my arms.
• “That’s… Grace’s,” she muttered, winding herself up again.
• “What else do you want to take from Grace? Killing her wasn’t enough?”
• She tried to rush me again.
• “Enough!”
• A roar came from behind her.
• Dad was braced against the doorframe, looking exhausted and shattered, his eyes bloodshot.
• “Victoria, stop. We failed her. We… failed both our daughters.”
• He shuffled up to me, hunched, suddenly so old.
• He stared at me, his lips moving before he finally got words out.
• “Ella… can we talk?”
• “There’s nothing to talk about.”
• I stared him down, shoved the stuffed bunny and the MP3 player into my pocket, and turned to leave.
• “I’ll get you a new heart.”
• Dad blurted it out, and it pinned me in place.
• I stopped and looked back at him, stunned.
• “Grace is gone… Our family can’t lose you too.”
• His voice was a mix of pleading and madness.
• “Your heart’s damaged because you donated organs to Grace.”
• Dad swallowed hard. “The doctors say you don’t have long.”
• “So I’ll give you my heart,” he offered. “Or your mom’s.”
• He shot a look at Mom, his gaze cold with resolve.
• “One of us is bound to be a match.”
• “We owe you.” He turned back to face me. “We’ll pay with our lives.”
• I stared at the two of them. It was insane.
• When they wanted to cut out my heart to save Grace, they said it was my fate.
• Now they’ve found out I was their biological daughter, and they wanted to carve out their own hearts to save me.
• What was my life to them?
• Just some thing they could trade whenever they felt like it?
• “I don’t need it.”
• I said it slowly, each word hard.
• “Your lives are filthy. You make me sick.”
• I didn’t look at them again and headed downstairs.
• This time, they didn’t try to stop me.
• I reached the front door and glanced back.
• Mom and Dad were still on the upstairs landing, standing still like statues, unmoving, watching me.
• Behind them was Grace’s empty room.
• I could almost see her sitting in her wheelchair, smiling at me from a distance, lifting her hand in a little wave.
• Goodbye, Grace.
• Goodbye to this house that caged me and buried every scrap of family I had.
• I pulled the door open and walked straight into the night without looking back.
• I followed the address Grace left and found the little place she’d rented for me.
• I unlocked the door. Inside, it was spotless.
• A wilted bunch of daisies sat on the table, with a note pressed beneath it.
• “Welcome home, my Ella.”
• My tears came again.
• I moved into the little house.
• At first, I shut myself in every day, hugging the stuffed bunny and playing Grace’s recordings over and over.
• Her voice was the only thing keeping me alive.
• I went to the hospital for a checkup.
• The results were bad.
• Malnutrition, plus all those organ donation surgeries, had wrecked me.
• Heart failure. Kidney failure. Liver fibrosis.
• The doctor looked over the reports, sighed, and said I didn’t have much time.
• I sat on a bench with the paperwork in my hands, calmly watching people come and go.
• Death never scared me.
• What’s terrifying was living like before—no dignity, no hope.
• Mom and Dad came looking for me a few times.
• They somehow found my address, showed up with medicine and gifts, and knocked on my door.
• I never opened it.
• They waited at my door, from day till night.
• One time it rained. Mom just stood there without an umbrella and let the rain drench her.
• Through the door, she kept speaking.
• “Ella, please open the door. I made you that chicken soup you love….”
• Chicken soup that I loved?
• I laughed out loud.
• I’d never even had it.
• The soup at home was always for Grace.
• All I ever got were her leftovers.
• I went to the door and yelled through it.
• “I don’t need it! Get the hell out! Don’t ever come bother me again!”
• After that, they didn’t show up for a long time.
• My body got worse by the day. Sometimes I’d black out and drop.
• Sometimes my chest hurt like it was being ripped open, keeping me up all night.
• I knew I didn’t have much time.
• I started planning how to spend whatever time I had left.
• I wanted to see the ocean—Grace said that’s what she wanted most.
• I wanted to spend a whole day at an amusement park, free for once, not just standing there wishing I were them.
• I wanted… to buy a burial plot for me and for Grace.
• Side by side.
• I was holding the bank card Grace had left me, about to go ask about plots at the cemetery, when an unknown number called.
• It was Dad’s lawyer.
• He said Victoria had died.