Chapter 2After being kicked out of the house, my mother regretted it many years later.

I didn’t waste any more words. I handed the pen to Evelyn. “Sign it. You’re free to be with whoever you want.”

She looked at me, her eyes full of disappointment. “Can you please stop being so dramatic? I just want our daughter to have more family in her life. Your family.”

My head felt like it was going to explode. I remembered when Ethan first came to live with us. My parents had told me, “You’re three months older than Ethan. From now on, you have a brother. You need to take care of him.”

He wasn’t named Ethan then. My dad said since his parents had both died, he should take our last name. He was just a small, helpless little boy. I gave him my treasured comic books, the chocolates my mom bought for me, the toy cars my dad brought home.

“Can I really think of this as my home from now on, big brother?” Ethan had asked, his eyes wide.

I remembered my parents’ words and nodded.

But from that day on, he was always on the verge of tears, always looking at me with a wounded expression. My parents thought I was bullying him. They called me selfish and gave all my things to him.

When I was six and a half, my room became his. The bookshelf that held all my comics became his.

When I was eight, the piano lessons I’d been taking for four years were canceled after Ethan “accidentally” slammed a door on my fingers.

When I was twelve, my birthday party was replaced with a celebration for Ethan’s win at a dance competition. The cake was mango-flavored, his favorite. My parents took endless photos of him. No one remembered I was allergic to mangoes.

When I was eighteen, I was forbidden from entering a math competition because, as my parents said, “We need to save that money to hire a better piano teacher for Ethan.”

When I was twenty-two, years of malnutrition caught up with me. I developed a severe stomach condition that required expensive surgery. My parents refused to help. Instead, they bought business-class tickets to Europe to watch Ethan compete in a piano competition.

I nearly died on the way to the hospital. That’s when I met Evelyn. She was horrified by my story and swore she would always be on my side.

Six years later, she was the one asking me to let them all back into my life.