Chapter 1: In Thirty Days, I Would Disappear
When I was twenty, my family's long-lost biological daughter finally came home.
At her welcome party, I worked all day, yet there wasn't even a seat for me. My brother asked me to take their new family photo. My fiancé wore the suit meant for our wedding and stood in the center with his arm linked through hers.
I smiled, pressed the shutter, and quietly left. By the time they discovered the guest room was empty, my plane was already in the air.
From that day on, Mom waited for me beside meals that went cold. Dad lost sleep clutching a torn photograph. My brother and fiancé searched for me like madmen, while the real daughter knelt outside my old bedroom, begging her sister to come home.
I was Erin Walker, the daughter switched at birth and raised by the Walker family for twenty years.
Claire, the Walkers' biological daughter, had been home for three months. Now she sat at the bottom of the stairs, pointing at me through her tears.
“Erin pushed me.”
“I never touched her.”
Mom didn't ask what had happened. She marched straight into my bedroom and dragged the boxes out from under my bed.
“You're moving into the guest room tonight. I'm giving your room to Claire.”
“She's only been home for three months, and you already can't stand her?” Mom ripped open a black garbage bag. “You had this room for twenty years. Wasn't that enough?”
She shoved in my baby albums, then swept my birthday gifts, diploma, and favorite books off the shelves.
“From now on, this room belongs to Claire. Not one thing of yours stays.”
“Mom, you can't throw those away.”
“They're only old books.”
I grabbed the garbage bag. Mom knocked my hand aside and threw in the family photograph from my desk.
Dad took the largest family portrait off the wall and found a pair of scissors.
“If these pictures upset Claire, we won't display them anymore.”
“Claire is the real daughter of this family. It's time you gave her place back.”
He handed Claire the half with himself, Mom, and Julian. The half with only me went into the garbage bag.
I stared at him.
“Dad, we took that picture last year.”
“We'll take another one.”
Julian pulled a childhood album from the bottom of a box. On the first page, he was six and I was three, riding on his back in the yard.
“Julian, give me that album.”
“Don't call me your brother.” He snapped it shut and dropped it into the trash. “When you bullied Claire, did you ever stop to think that she's my real sister?”
“I didn't push her.”
“Enough. Carry this garbage out yourself. Don't expect the staff to clean up after you.”
“And if you make her cry again, you won't even have the guest room.”
Footsteps sounded at the door. Nolan entered wearing the wedding suit I had chosen for him and held out his hand.
“Give me the ring.”
I didn't move.
“What do you mean?”
“The wedding is on hold. The venue is already booked, so we'll use it for Claire's welcome party instead.”
“What about my wedding dress?”
“Hand it over tomorrow. Claire likes the lace. We can turn it into decorations for the party.”
“And don't dress like a bride at the party or tell anyone the wedding was supposed to be yours.”
I slipped off the engagement ring I had worn for three years and placed it in his palm. Nolan pocketed it without looking at the red mark around my finger.
Mom's gaze suddenly fixed on my neck.
“Take off the necklace too.”
I closed my hand around the tiny moon pendant. “You gave this to me when I was a month old.”
“We didn't know you had been switched then.” She pried my hand open and unclasped the necklace herself. “It was always meant to belong to Claire.”
Claire leaned against Julian and whispered, “If Erin can't bear to part with it, then forget it.”
Mom immediately fastened the necklace around her neck. “She has no right to keep it.”
Rain began hammering the windows. I picked up the first black garbage bag and carried it toward the garbage room at the edge of the yard.
Julian called after me, “Six more bags. Finish tonight.”
The bottom of one bag split in the rain. Photographs and certificates spilled across the ground. Dad walked past me and said only, “Don't make a mess in the hallway.”
I crouched in the rain and stuffed everything back into the bag. The childhood album lay beside a muddy puddle, its cover split. When I opened the back, I found a thin duplicate tucked inside. It hadn't been stepped on.
I hid the copy inside my coat and carried everything else into the garbage room.
The guest room contained nothing but a bed. I closed the door, took out my new phone, and bought a one-way ticket to London for thirty days from now.
After the payment went through, I set a countdown.
Thirty days.
On the last day, I would disappear from all their lives.
