Chapter 2Pout or Suicide? My Brother’s Mad Regret

I hadn’t meant for him to find me.

Three months ago, Sophie had told Jake that I was a good-for-nothing, that I was messing around with some lowlife from the wrong side of the tracks. She’d even Photoshopped a picture of me, a compromising one, and showed it to him.

And Jake believed her.

No matter how much I pleaded, his face remained a thundercloud. He had only one thing to say to me:

“You have no shame, Nina.”

I was speechless, my body aching with helpless fury. In that moment, I lost control and slapped Sophie across the face.

Jake returned the favor instantly.

He was strong. The force of his slap sent me crashing to the floor, my ear ringing with a deafening hum. I clutched my cheek in disbelief, hot tears of betrayal finally breaking free as I bolted out the door.

I’d planned to stay in a cheap motel for a few days. But the pain in my ear grew worse, and a deep ache settled into my muscles.

A trip to the hospital confirmed a perforated eardrum in my left ear. And terminal leukemia.

The doctor’s brow was furrowed with concern.

“You’ve lost hearing in this ear permanently. If someone did this to you, you should report it.”

“As for the leukemia… I would advise palliative care…”

The unspoken words hung in the air: There’s no cure.

I left the hospital in a daze. The people rushing past on the sidewalk all seemed to have family with them, someone to lean on. I found a quiet corner, squatted down, and sobbed until I couldn't breathe.

My phone had died, and I never bothered to charge it.

Two days later, Jake found me. He was livid.

“Why didn’t you come home? Do you have any idea how long I’ve been looking for you?!”

“You were the one in the wrong! I only slapped you once! Was that really a reason to run away?”

He looked exhausted, his anger mixed with a desperate plea as he grabbed my wrist. “Please, Nina. Just give me a break, will you?”

In that moment, I remembered what our grandmother had said just before she died.

“Dying with hatred in your heart turns you into a vengeful spirit. You won’t get a good rebirth.”

She and Grandpa had been in love their whole lives, but on her deathbed, she learned he had two other children from an affair. If she could let go of a betrayal like that, what couldn’t I?

So I went home with Jake and never mentioned what had happened.

At first, whenever I remembered I was dying, I would cry in secret. Jake caught me twice. "Crying, always crying," he'd snap. "I don't know what you have to cry about. Why can't you be more cheerful, like Sophie?"

I tried to tell him I was sick, but he dismissed it as another lie, another bid for attention. After a while, I stopped trying.

He hated my tears, so I stopped crying.

He called me stingy, so I gave Sophie everything.

When he could no longer find fault with me, he decided I was just putting on an act.

It didn't matter. I had made my peace with it.

Every day from now on was just a waiting game.

I was looking forward to the next life more than I was to the rest of this one.

In the early hours of the morning, I lit some fireworks by myself in the yard. I didn't want to wake Jake and Sophie, so I used sparklers, the cheap ones that cost a dollar a stick.

The tiny sparks fizzled from one end to the other.

I made a wish: to live peacefully through the new year.

The next day, I slept in a little. When I came downstairs, Jake was sitting on the sofa. Our eyes met, and the fury in his gaze was barely contained.

A lump formed in my throat. "What's wrong?" I asked.

He opened his hand. Lying in his palm was the pill bottle I had forgotten to pick up the night before.

I thought he knew. My fingers curled into a fist, a tiny, foolish flicker of hope igniting within me. If he knew I had cancer, would he feel sorry for me? Would he finally be a little kinder?

But the words that came out of his mouth were cold as ice.

"Nina. You're on drugs."