Chapter 2

TAMSIN

The next morning, the investigator's office called. They were willing to give me one more shot.

I went downstairs to tell my parents.

"The investigator wants to meet us at Linwood High tomorrow afternoon. I need both of you there."

Mom was on the couch with her back to me, feeding Delphine grapes one at a time like she was some kind of Roman empress.

I said it again.

"I heard you," she snapped. "God, you nag like a bill collector. Go clear the table. We've got company coming."

"I have a call with my advisor about my thesis. Delphine's not doing anything."

"Your sister hurt her nail. She can't do housework. Go on, and quit making excuses."

Delphine had broken a nail in eighth grade. Mom still remembered.

What she'd forgotten was that last month, I'd been in a car accident and fractured my wrist. The surgical pins weren't even out yet.

A little while later, one of Mom's coworkers came over.

Mrs. Fairweather swept through the door and made a beeline for Delphine. "Corinne, she is stunning. Honestly, she could be a model."

Delphine flipped her hair and soaked it up.

Mom laughed behind her hand, practically glowing.

Then Mrs. Fairweather's eyes slid over to me, flat and bored. "Be a dear and get me a glass of water? Room temperature."

I hesitated, then headed for the kitchen.

Their voices carried perfectly.

"So that's the one you adopted? She's nothing like Delphine, is she?"

"Tell me about it. No manners, won't even say hello. That's what we get for spoiling her."

My fingers tightened around the glass. I walked back out. "I'm not adopted," I said. "I'm their biological daughter."

Delphine's face changed instantly.

Mrs. Fairweather managed an awkward little "Oh."

Mom's head snapped around. "Tamsin! What are you talking about?"

Then, smooth as anything, to her guest: "She's just jealous of her sister. She always has been."

I kept my voice level. "If you don't believe me, I'd be happy to show you my birth certificate."

The second the front door clicked shut behind Mrs. Fairweather, Delphine glared at me with red-rimmed eyes. On her way to the stairs, she slammed her shoulder into mine.

My bad wrist cracked against the corner of the coffee table. I doubled over.

Mom didn't spare me a glance. She was already hurrying after Delphine. "Sweetheart! Del, honey!"

I was still trying to breathe through the pain when Delphine reappeared at the second-floor railing.

She was holding my rocket model.

It was a limited-edition scale replica of a heavy-lift launch vehicle. I'd skipped meals for an entire semester to afford it.

My whole body went cold. I watched her raise it over her head and throw it.

The crash echoed through the living room. Fins, stages, the tiny hand-painted nose cone—all of it skidded across the hardwood in a hundred different directions.

I looked up at her, my voice tight. "That was mine."

Mom's face darkened. "It's a toy, Tamsin. You're really going to make a scene over a toy? If you hadn't embarrassed her in front of a guest, she never would have done it."

"It's still mine. She had no right to touch it."

Mom stepped in front of Delphine like a shield. "Yours? And whose money paid for it? If you're so independent, stop asking us for money."

Something inside me went quiet.

They gave me three hundred dollars a month. To teach you independence, they'd said.

Delphine got two thousand a month just for food, and everything else went on Dad's credit card.

I hadn't spent a single cent of their money on that model. I'd paid for it by tutoring freshmen in calculus, one student at a time, and I'd lived on instant ramen for weeks to cover the rest.

Nobody noticed the blood seeping through my sleeve. Nobody asked if it hurt.

I didn't have the energy to argue anymore.

Mom folded Delphine into her arms and murmured, "Shh, don't cry, baby. That bag you wanted is back in stock. I'll order it tonight."

On her way down the stairs, Delphine ground the broken pieces under her heel and walked off smiling.

I knelt on the floor and picked up the fragments one by one.

My wrist throbbed with every movement. A drop of blood landed on a piece of the booster, and I wiped it away with my sleeve.

It was never going to fit back together.

I remembered being eleven and **telling her friends we were sisters.

That night, she'd taken a pair of scissors to my favorite stuffed rabbit.

I wiped my eyes and told myself, over and over:

Don't you dare go soft, Tamsin.

You have to get out of this cage.