Chapter 1

The ninety-ninth call went to voicemail, just like the ninety-eight before it. I lowered my phone, the screen showing my father' s stern, uniformed photo. My hand trembled, not from the cold of the Cleveland autumn, but from the war raging inside my own blood. The flimsy piece of paper in my other hand felt heavier than a tombstone. Acute Myeloid Leukemia. The words were a death sentence.

I had tried to tell them. I had called my father, my mother, my brother. No one answered. They were busy, I knew. Busy preparing for Molly' s "Sweet 19" birthday party. My adopted sister, the perfect, traumatized orphan everyone adored. My birthday last year? They forgot.

Giving up on my family, I walked into the sterile, gray Social Security office. The air smelled of old paper and quiet desperation. I took a number and waited, my body aching with a fatigue that went bone-deep. When my number was called, I approached the counter. The clerk, a tired-looking woman named Susan with kind eyes, looked at me over her glasses.

"How can I help you, dear?"

My voice was a hoarse whisper. "I need to inquire about... death benefits. For myself. And how to pre-arrange my final affairs."

Susan' s brow furrowed. "Honey, you look a little young to be worrying about that."

"I have this," I said, pushing the diagnosis from the public hospital across the counter. "It's late-stage. The doctor said maybe a week. I don't want to be a burden."

Susan' s professional calm shattered. She stared at the paper, then at me. Her eyes widened. "Your family... do they know?"

"They're busy," I said, the words tasting like ash.

She didn' t accept that. She saw the hospital name, saw my address, and made a call. I didn' t have the energy to stop her. Ten minutes later, the doors to the office flew open. My father, Matthew Fuller, stormed in, his police detective' s badge glinting on his belt. My mother, Jennifer, and my brother, Andrew, followed, their faces masks of fury. And behind them, clinging to my mother' s arm, was Molly, her eyes already welling with perfect, crystalline tears.

"Gabrielle Fuller!" my father' s voice boomed, making everyone in the waiting area jump. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Wasting public resources on a weekday? Do you have any idea how much you' ve embarrassed us, pulling a stunt like this on Molly' s birthday?"

My mother snatched the paper from the clerk's desk, her lips curling in disgust.

"This cheap-looking printout? From that charity hospital? Gabrielle, this is a new low, even for you. You' ve been faking illnesses for attention since you were a child."

"Gabby, please," Molly sobbed, her voice trembling beautifully. "Please stop this. Stop lying and hurting us. I just want to have a happy birthday."

The stress, the anger, the disease-it all culminated in a sudden, warm gush from my nose. Blood dripped onto my chin, then splattered onto the linoleum floor. I didn' t bother to wipe it away. I looked straight at the horrified clerk, my voice flat and empty.

"I have no family. I just need to make sure my cremation in three days isn' t a burden to the state."