Chapter 2

The next few days were a blur of quiet, suffocating sympathy. My parents moved around me like I was a ghost, their faces etched with a weary concern I hadn't seen in years.

The hate, however, never slept.

My phone, a new one my father had insisted on, became a vessel for the city' s venom. Anonymous texts, social media tags, friend requests from fake profiles with cruel names.

'Heard you had a meltdown at your own party. Still crazy, I see.'

'Leave Ethan and Emily alone, you psycho.'

'Dr. Carter? Who' s that? Your new obsession now that you can' t have Ethan?'

I would read them, my face blank, and then I would delete the messages one by one. The words were just pixels on a screen. They couldn' t hurt me anymore than the whispers at the party. It was just noise. My real pain was a silent, nameless ocean inside me, and these were just pebbles skipping across the surface.

I sat in the formal dining room, pushing a piece of toast around my plate. The house was too quiet. My mother sat across from me, sipping her coffee, her eyes darting toward me every few seconds before quickly looking away. There was a chasm between us, carved out by three years of misunderstanding and fear.

She couldn' t look at me directly. She especially couldn' t look at my hands.

She remembered the broken bones. The deep gashes. The stories they were told, the stories they chose to believe. The story where I had done it to myself in a desperate, last-ditch effort to get Ethan' s attention.

The truth was something she couldn' t bear to imagine. So we sat in silence.

One evening, I was walking past my father' s study when I heard their hushed, urgent voices. I stopped, hidden by the shadow of the hallway.

"...can' t have a repeat of last time, Helen," my father was saying, his voice strained. "Do you know how much it cost me to clean up that mess? The Hayes family could have destroyed us."

"I know, Robert," my mother' s voice trembled. "But look at her. She' s not well. That... that breakdown over the doctor on the news. It wasn' t normal."

"Normal or not, we have to be careful. Ethan Hayes is more powerful than ever. And with this engagement to Emily Vance, the families are united. We cannot afford to be on their bad side. We just have to keep Sarah quiet and out of the way until this all blows over."

Keep me quiet. Out of the way. The words didn' t sting. They were just a confirmation of a truth I already knew. I was a problem to be managed. A liability.

I turned and walked silently back to my room.

A few nights later, we were sitting in the living room again, the television on as a buffer against the silence. An entertainment news segment came on. The host' s voice was bright and cheerful.

"And in the society event of the year, billionaire businessman Ethan Hayes and Vance Corp heiress Emily Vance have officially announced their engagement! The power couple was seen earlier today leaving a press conference where they confirmed that a wedding is planned for next spring."

The screen filled with an image of Ethan and Emily. He was smiling, but it didn' t reach his eyes. Emily clung to his arm, her face triumphant, her diamond ring flashing for the cameras.

I felt a flicker of something. Not pain. Not jealousy. It was a ghost of a memory. A faint echo of a time when I had looked at that man and seen my entire future. I remembered sitting in my tiny student apartment, dreaming of a day he would look at me like that.

Now, looking at the screen, I felt nothing at all.

My mother' s hand flew to her mouth. My father cleared his throat, his eyes fixed on me, bracing for the explosion they were sure was coming. They expected hysterics. Tears. Screaming. The reaction of the 'crazy' girl they remembered.

I didn't move. I just picked up my cup of chamomile tea, took a slow, deliberate sip, and placed it back on the saucer without a sound.

My calmness was a quiet defiance. It was more unsettling to them than any tantrum could have been. In their eyes, my lack of a reaction was the most insane reaction of all.