Chapter 2Two Organ Donations, Two Broken Sisters

"Okay. I will do the surgery. If there is a chance, who wouldn't want to live?" I offered a self-deprecating smile.

After scheduling the admission and the operation, I walked out of the clinic. My phone began to vibrate in my pocket.

The screen lit up with the word Mom.

My thumb hovered over the green accept button, but I couldn't bring myself to press it.

Eventually, the buzzing stopped.

A text message popped up. Sierra, are you coming home for dinner this weekend?

I stared at that single line of text until the screen went black.

Then, slowly, I deleted the message letter by letter.

The phone rang again. This time it was Paul.

I answered. Before I could even breathe, his voice cut through the line, sharp and cold. "Where are you?"

"Out," I replied.

"Kate is having a terrible mental health day. Her psychiatrist says it is a severe depressive episode triggered by the donation complications."

Paul's voice was tight with suppressed anxiety. "Mom has been crying all afternoon. If you don't have any actual business here, stay away this weekend."

I leaned my back against the freezing tiled wall of the hospital and closed my eyes. "Understood."

"What exactly do you understand?" Paul's tone spiked with sudden venom.

"Do you have any idea how much she sacrificed for you? She has to take seven different pills a day now. Two of them are heavy antidepressants. She used to be the brightest, happiest girl in the world. Now she is terrified of the sunlight hitting her window."

I murmured a quiet agreement.

Paul practically yelled into the receiver. "You get to walk around perfectly healthy while she rots away! Sometimes I really just want to..."

He cut himself off. But I knew exactly how that sentence ended.

Sometimes he really wished Kate had let me die.

"I am sorry," I said.

I had said those words so many times they had lost all meaning.

The silence on the other end lasted so long I thought the call had dropped.

When Paul finally spoke again, he just sounded utterly exhausted. "Forget it. Mom told me to ask you about the Kensington charity gala next week. Are you going? Kate might make an appearance. If you are there..."

"I am not going," I answered immediately.

I heard a faint exhale of relief from his end, though his tone remained rigid. "I will have my assistant send a dress to your apartment anyway. You know how it is. Mom had Kate's gown custom-made in Paris, so yours will be a bit simpler off the rack. Do not take it personally. This is what you owe her."

I didn't reply.

I ended the call and slowly slid down the wall until I was sitting on the floor.

The hospital tiles were like ice. The cold seeped through my clothes and buried itself deep in my bones.

My phone buzzed one more time. A banking alert.

Fifty thousand dollars.

The memo line contained exactly three words. Take care, Dad.

This was the third wire transfer this month.

Richard always did this. He used wealth to spackle over the massive, unspeakable cracks in our family.

It was as if the chime of a bank notification fulfilled his entire duty as a father.

I forced myself to stand. My legs were numb.

By the time I walked out through the sliding glass doors, it was dusk.

The setting sun stained the sky a sickly, vibrant crimson. It looked like an open wound bleeding across the horizon.