Chapter 2My Replacement Brother

Once again, I found myself in a hospital bed.

This time, however, I wouldn't be slipping into a ten-year coma.

When my mother saw my eyes flutter open, she jolted upright, her voice thick with unshed tears. “Faye, your brother… he hasn’t woken up… The doctor said the pressure in his skull keeps rising. He might… he might never wake up.”

My father was crouched by the doorway, crushing a pack of cigarettes in his hand, his knuckles white. When he looked at me, his gaze was a complex storm of fear and exhaustion, but mostly, it was the familiar sting of blame.

“If you hadn’t insisted on going to that abandoned building with him…”

Of course. Just like last time. No matter the outcome, I would always be the one at fault.

In my past life, when I woke up, all I heard were my parents’ complaints about the sky-high medical bills from the past decade, followed by their relieved thanks that their precious son was unharmed. If it weren't for keeping up appearances, they probably would have pulled the plug on me years ago.

But having died once already, I could finally accept the cold truth: they just didn't love me.

Still, Leo was tougher than I thought. A fall from the sixth floor, and he wasn't even dead. A new game, a new life, I guess.

I clutched the corner of my blanket and shrank back, letting tears well up in my eyes. My voice trembled. “I’m sorry, Mom, Dad… When Leo started climbing the scaffolding, I told him not to. I said the wood was rotten and he would fall. But he yelled at me… told me a stupid little girl doesn’t know anything… He just pushed me away…”

I lifted my tear-filled eyes to my father.

“Daddy… you called me a pest last time for always following Leo around… If I hadn’t been there… would he still have fallen?”

My father’s Adam’s apple bobbed violently. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

I turned to my mother.

“And Mommy, just yesterday you said that Leo would be the man of the house one day, and I needed to be more sensible…” My voice cracked. “Does that mean… that whatever I do is wrong if it makes him unhappy?”

The only sound in the quiet room was my own choked sobbing.

“I wanted to save him, I really did, but then I fell and everything went black… Mom, Dad, are you blaming me, too…?”

A nurse walked past the open door, and her conversation drifted in. “Yeah, that’s the room. Can you believe that kid? The planks on the third level were practically dust, and he still kept climbing!”

“Well, at least they still have the…”

My mother pulled me into a tight, trembling hug, her body shaking. Her voice was a broken, choked whisper, heavy with a long-overdue remorse. “I’m so sorry, Faye… Mom and Dad… we didn’t raise your brother right…”

My father remained frozen in the doorway, but his fingers were digging into the cool metal of the frame, the knuckles turning a stark, bloodless white.

The comments were still railing against me. It was giving me a headache, so I buried my face in my mother’s neck and shut my eyes.

Let them scream. It wouldn’t change the fact that my parents’ favoritism was about to shift. For an eight-year-old, there is no weapon more powerful than an innocent question and a flood of tears.

And the crushing weight of medical bills doesn’t change just because the person lying in the bed is now Leo.