I took a shuddering breath in and let it out slowly, glancing around to ground myself. To stop my mind from dragging me back to the day I made a mistake that would cost meeverything.
I closed my eyes, zeroing my internal focus from the headstone and beneath six feet of tightly packed earth, where a white coffin lay. Empty, because we never found my sister’s body.
I still held on to hope, but my parents had lost theirs long ago. Maybe they knew something I didn’t, or maybe I was justa hopeless fool who wanted her sister back beyond any logic or reason.
My mother stepped closer, her footprints leaving deep impressions in the earth that filled slowly with powder. She reached out with a gloved hand and brushed snow from my sister’s name, as if clearing dust from a shelf.
“You did this,” she said quietly.
She didn’t meet my eye, but there was no doubt who she was talking to. Her words lacerated, cutting into my flesh until nothing but guilt seeped from invisible wounds.
“Mom—” I started, but I couldn’t find the words. After all, what could I say that would possibly make any of it better?
I swallowed, my stomach winding tight and threatening to empty its meager contents.
I wanted to step forward, to say I was sorry. I wanted to fall to my knees and press my hands into the frozen ground and ask God—ask anyone who was listening—to bring her back. To take me instead.
Mom’s eyes finally met mine, glimmering with tears. “Oh, Violet. My baby. How did it all go wrong?”
“I can tell you how it all went wrong. It started twenty-one years ago,” my father snapped, his voice colder than the current winter temperature. The only thing he could mean by those words was me. He hated me, and I didn’t know why.
Mom’s broken eyes found me as she attempted a sad smile, but she didn’t say anything. She didn’t correct him.
“Let’s go,” he said, tugging Mom along like she was his dog on a leash.
Blinking, I stood frozen amidst perfect strangers as they turned and walked back toward the gates, carving twin paths through the sludge.
I didn’t follow.
Long after they were gone, I stared at the ground, at the fresh soil covering a plot of land that had no business existing. I imagined digging it up. I imagined prying open that cherrywood box and climbing inside, folding myself into the only space that would erase my sorrow. Maybe that would make it right.
I blinked back into awareness as a gust of wind kicked at the hem of my heavy coat, slowly hiding Lily’s name on the gravestone.
TWO
VIOLET
The bar was called Greek Madness, tucked inside the most expensive building in the city. Rumor had it that membership was reserved for residents of the building itself, those living in other properties owned by some Greek mogul or another, and whichever guests those residents added to their guest list. I was on it thanks to my friend Sophie Baldwin, a fellow med student who had just started her residency training in obstetrics and gynecology. We’d crossed paths in college during one of the family functions in which her aunt recognized my last name and introduced me to her niece. Both of our families were well off, although they couldn’t be more different. Her family was close-knit and loving. Mine was dysfunctional, to say the least. But still, Sophie and I clicked right away, and she’d been a steady friend ever since.
The bell dinged when I pushed the door open, and a sensual blues number drifted through the air, slipping out into the cold winter night behind me.
For a second, I almost turned around.
I had come to DC seeking comfort from Sophie, and yet I had left her alone in her condo, slipping out into the night because the walls there had felt too close, too full of wishful “what-ifs” and envy of her family. I didn’t know how to deal with it.
So, I’d left the condo with the excuse that I needed air.
Sophie wouldn’t have understood if I told her I was envious. Her parents died when she was young, a tragedy that had wrapped her life in sympathy and open arms. Her aunt had taken her in without hesitation and her cousin had treated her like a sister. She had grown up surrounded by people who chose her every day.
I had grown up learning how easily you could be left behind.
My grandfather despised my parents, and that bitterness had trickled down to their children. Family gatherings had been cold, strained events until they stopped happening altogether. And now my parents had discarded me too.
Which meant I had nobody.
My hand lingered on the door, the cold metal pressing into my palm, but I eventually pulled it open.
The bar was nearly empty. Dim lights were strung over the counter, casting everything in amber hues. The air smelled of old, expensive liquor. The place had a classy, comfortable atmosphere with a veil of privacy, and most attractive of all was the fire crackling in the corner, warming the air.
