Chapter 1

My name was Sarah Miller, and I was twenty-two.

Life in our suburban New Jersey town felt small, shrinking daily.

It shrank because of Brenda Hayes.

Brenda was my father' s "executive assistant," a title as flimsy as her tight dresses.

She was younger than my mom, Carol, with a hard, shiny look.

My father, Rick Miller, owned a chain of hardware stores.

Successful, people said.

Morally bankrupt, I saw.

Brenda had him wrapped around her little finger.

He' d started talking about Mom like she was a burden, a faded photograph.

Mom, who gave up her graphic design dreams to be a homemaker, to raise me.

She was kind, gentle, and now, mostly silent, her eyes holding a permanent sadness.

Brenda wanted to replace her, it was obvious.

She even had a son, Jason, around ten, from a previous relationship.

Brenda was already parading him around as Rick' s potential stepson.

I was an obstacle to Brenda. A vocal one.

I told Dad what I thought of Brenda, of how he was treating Mom.

He didn' t listen. He just got angry, defensive.

Brenda' s smile, when she looked at me, was pure venom.

One evening, I was driving home from my part-time library job.

Headlights, blinding, from a car speeding through a stop sign.

A screech of tires, then a monstrous crash.

Pain, then nothing.

Darkness.

My life, systematically destroyed.

Brenda' s work, I knew it, even in the void.

A hit-and-run, they' d call it.

Convenient.

I was left in a persistent vegetative state.

A body in a bed, wires and tubes.

That' s what I became.