Chapter 4

The next morning, my mother and her husband cornered me in the kitchen. The remnants of Brittany's party were still scattered around, a testament to the celebration I had no part in.

"Chloe," my mother began, her voice taking on that familiar tone of strained patience. "We need to talk about your attitude. Brittany was very hurt yesterday. You made her feel uncomfortable on her own birthday."

"My birthday too," I said quietly.

"This isn't about you," my stepfather cut in, his voice sharp. "You are part of this family now, and you need to start acting like it. That means supporting your sister, not making everything a competition. You will apologize to Brittany." They were trying to force a reconciliation, to smooth over the cracks for the sake of their perfect new family dynamic. My feelings were an inconvenience they wanted to manage.

As if on cue, Brittany walked in, holding a beautifully wrapped box. "Oh, this must be for you," she said, handing it to my mother. "It came yesterday, but with all the excitement, we forgot."

My mother opened it. Inside was a set of vintage French copper pans, the exact ones I had circled in a catalog weeks ago. "Oh, Chloe, look," my mother said, her eyes lighting up. "Brittany, these are gorgeous! You'll be able to make such wonderful things with these."

The gift, my gift, was handed to Brittany without a second thought. It was a symbolic rejection, so casual and complete, that I almost laughed. Of course. Even a gift addressed to me wasn't truly mine.

I went to my room and pulled a small, worn wooden box from under my bed. Inside was my father' s old chef's knife. The handle was smooth from years of use, the steel still sharp. I held it in my hands, the cool weight of it a small comfort. It was all I had left of him, a tangible link to the person who had first sparked my passion for cooking. It was my most prized possession.

A knock came at the door. It was Brittany. "Mom said I should come make up," she said, not sounding sorry at all. She glanced around my room, her eyes landing on the open box. "What's that?"

"It was my father's," I said, my voice tight.

"Oh. Cute," she said dismissively. Then, she offered a peace offering. "Look, if you help me prep for the culinary championship preliminaries, I'll let you be my official assistant. You can even put it on your resume." It wasn't an apology, it was another demand disguised as a favor. She still saw me as a tool to be used.

I just shook my head. "No, thank you."

Her expression hardened. "Fine. But if you want to make things right, there's something else you can do." Her eyes flickered back to the knife in my hands. "That knife. It looks professional. I need a good knife for the competition. You should give it to me."

The request was so audacious, so monstrous, that I was speechless. She wanted to take the last piece of my father from me. "No," I whispered. "Absolutely not."

"Don't be selfish, Chloe," she snapped.

Liam appeared in the doorway behind her. "Chloe, just give it to her," he said, his voice flat. "It's just a knife. Don't make this a bigger deal than it is." He was siding with her, threatening me with his disapproval, leveraging our entire shared history against me.

"It's not 'just a knife'," I said, my grip tightening on the handle. "It's my father's."

Brittany's patience snapped. "Ugh, you are so dramatic!" She lunged forward and snatched the knife from my hands. I cried out, scrambling after her, but she was faster. She held it up, admiring it. "See? It's perfect."

Then, with a cold, deliberate movement, she walked over to the open window and held the knife outside. "If you can't learn to share, Chloe, then maybe no one should have it."

And she let it go.

I watched in horror as it fell, end over end, tumbling down three stories before clattering onto the concrete driveway below. The sound of the impact was a gunshot in the quiet afternoon. A part of me shattered with it. She had destroyed it. She had taken my last connection to my dad and thrown it away like trash, just to punish me.

Without thinking, I scrambled past them, out of the room, and down the stairs. I ran out the front door, my heart pounding with a desperate, frantic energy. I had to get it back. I didn't even look for traffic as I ran into the street toward the driveway. I saw the knife lying there, the wooden handle split, the blade bent at an unnatural angle. As I bent to pick it up, a screech of tires filled the air. Pain exploded in my side as a car slammed into me, sending me skidding across the pavement. My last thought before everything went dark was the feel of the broken, ruined handle in my hand.