Chapter 2

My lungs burned as I ran, each gasp of air feeling like swallowing fire. I didn' t stop until the school was a distant shape behind me and the sounds of sirens were a faint wail on the wind. I ducked into an alleyway, my back sliding down the rough brick wall until I was sitting on the grimy pavement.

My body wouldn't stop shaking. It was a deep, uncontrollable tremor that started in my bones. I wrapped my arms around my knees, trying to hold myself together, but the phantom pain in my shoulder and the memory of cold liquid spreading through my veins were too real.

This wasn' t a second chance at being a better son or brother. It was a second chance to live.

My family wasn' t a haven. It was a minefield, and at its center was Ethan Hayes.

My mother, Olivia, had been a resident at the hospital where Ethan' s parents were brought in after a horrific car crash. They were old friends of hers, she' d said. They died on the operating table, and Olivia, consumed by a sense of guilt and duty, adopted their only son, Ethan.

He was two years old at the time. I was four, and Sarah was six.

From the moment he entered our home, the dynamic shifted. Ethan was fragile, the poor orphan who needed protection. Sarah was the brilliant, shining daughter. And I was... just Liam. The afterthought.

Ethan became the sun around which my mother orbited. His every wish was her command. His slightest whimper sent her rushing to his side. He could do no wrong. If his toy broke, it was because I had looked at it the wrong way. If he failed a test, it was because I had been too loud while he was studying.

My father, David, just went along with it. He was a passive man who avoided conflict, and arguing with Olivia was a battle he never wanted to fight. So he simply accepted her narrative: Ethan was precious, and Liam was a problem.

My grandparents, both paternal and maternal, followed suit. They saw a grieving woman trying to do right by her dead friends' son, and they doted on Ethan, showering him with the affection they withheld from me.

I tried to tell them. I tried to tell them about the things Ethan did when they weren' t looking. The way he would pinch me until I bruised, then run to our mother crying that I had hit him. The time he "accidentally" broke my school project I had spent a month on, the one I needed to pass my class.

Olivia' s response was always the same.

"Liam, stop trying to blame Ethan for your own shortcomings. He' s been through enough. You should be ashamed of yourself for being so cruel to him."

After a while, I just stopped trying. It was pointless. In their eyes, I was the villain, and Ethan was the perpetual victim they needed to champion.

Huddled in the alley, the tremors finally started to subside, replaced by an icy calm. I had spent my first life desperately trying to earn their love, to prove I was worthy. I had tried to save Sarah, believing that if I could just do that one thing right, they would finally see me.

And what did it get me? A needle in the neck from my own mother.

This time, there would be no trying. No desperate pleas for affection. No attempts to prove my worth. I would let the events play out as they were meant to. I would let them see the truth for themselves, without my interference.

I pulled out my phone. My hands were steady now. I scrolled to my mother' s contact. I stared at her name, then closed the phone and slipped it back into my pocket.

Let them call me. Let them blame me. Let them rage.

It didn' t matter anymore. I was just an observer now. A ghost watching a tragedy I had already seen unfold. And this time, I wouldn't be a part of the cast. I was only in the audience.