Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Erin
The car ride home is suffocating, like the air’s been stolen out of the world, and I’m choking on silence.
All my tricks, all my usual anchors feel useless.
I’m tapping. Counting. Closing my eyes and trying to pretend I’m anywhere but here. But it doesn’t work.
I’m trapped.
My father insisted on driving instead of having a ride. I see why now. He knew we’d need the privacy.
My mother’s perched next to him, her back ramrod straight like the seatbelt isn’t enough to keep her spine stiff. Their silence presses against my skin like a second layer—heavy, breathless, and crushing.
I’m trying to find the words to express my absolute fury at them, but words seem to fall short. I’m simmering, absolutely shaking with anger.
Because I thought I understood the bargain. Be polite. Smile at dinner. Make friends with the McCarthys so they'd help us reach Dr. Rosenberg. So they'd use their connections to save Bridget.
I thought I was playing nice for an evening. Maybe a few more dinners. Some tea with Caitlin McCarthy. Pleasant conversations about gardens and books.
Not this. Never this.
Not handing over my entire life like livestock at auction.
Finally, my mother breaks the silence.
“Well,” she says tightly. “That went well, didn’t it?”
“Are you absolutely out of your fucking mind?” My voice snaps before I can stop it, tight and shaking, rage and panic twisted together.
“Erin,” my father cuts sharply.
“Don’t you fuckin’ Erin me. Don’t either of you talk down to me.”
“Language. My god, to think we’re marrying her off to the McCarthys,” my mother mutters.
“No!” The word rips out of me. My hand trembles as I point at them.
“You told me we were making friends with them! You said—” My voice cracks.
“You said if I was polite, if I made a good impression, they might help us with Dr. Rosenberg.
That's what you said, Mam. That's the only reason I agreed to go!”
“And they will help,” my mother says coolly. “That's part of the arrangement.”
“Part of the—” I can't breathe. “You mean the arrangement where I marry him? Where I become his wife? That arrangement? You let me walk into their home without telling me I was supposed to be engaged to Cavin McCarthy. Did you literally forget what he did to me at St. Albert’s?” I choke, my voice breaking into something shrill and childish.
I hate the sound, how small it makes me feel.
“In school, Erin? That was ages ago.”
“Ages ago.” I laugh, sharp and ugly. “As if time suddenly erases it. And even if he was some perfect gentleman, which he wasn’t, you let me find out from a stranger that I was engaged. Engaged! To be married.”
My vision blurs, and my fists clench at my sides. I want to tear off every pearl, shred this dress, slam a door hard enough to splinter the frame, and disappear.
“Erin,” my mother snaps. “Pull yourself together. You know this is necessary for the family’s survival.”
“Necessary for the family’s survival,” I repeat. “I thought the whole point of cozying up to the McCarthys was so their doctor might help Bridget. That’s why I went. You know that.”
The realization still claws at me, the way it gutted me when I was alone with Cavin. I felt sick then. I feel sick now.
My autonomy sold like livestock.
Given away to a man who once tormented me.
Gift-wrapped for a stranger.
“This is an all-time low.” The words slip out raw, jagged.
“Don’t you dare.” My mother twists around, her eyes venom. “Don’t you dare make this about you.”
I throw my hands up, a hollow laugh punching out of me. “Are you kidding me right now?”
The temperature in the car spikes. Disbelief curdles into fury, boiling over. “Make it about me? I’d give anything for Bridget. Anything.”
“Would you?” my mother snarls.
My father’s knuckles whiten on the steering wheel, but he doesn’t speak.
“Unlike you,” I spit. “I don’t look away when she’s not perfect. You lied about where she is because you can’t stand the truth.”
“That’s not why—”
“Enough!” my father roars, like thunder cracking through the car. He stabs a finger at me through the rearview mirror. “You do not speak to your mother like that.”
I feel seven years old again, silenced and helpless.
I bite down on my tongue until iron floods my mouth. I imagine reaching for the handle. Unlocking the door. Throwing myself out onto the highway. Concrete tearing skin. Bleeding, then… running. Far, far away, where no one knows who I am.
Silence stretches, brittle and jagged.
“When is the wedding?” I ask finally, defeated. “Can you tell me that much?”
“We don’t have a date yet,” my mother says. “But they suggested two months.”
“Two months?” My voice cracks. “Two months. Oh my god.”
“Well,” she says coolly, “there you go again. Always about yourself. If you can’t do it for yourself,” she snaps, “then do it for Bridget.”
Her words ignite me.
“Do it for my sister?” My tone goes deadly calm.
“Where were you when she fainted at the sight of her own blood, and I drove her to the hospital? Where were you when the medicine wrecked her body, when she couldn’t eat for days, and I sat beside her with a bucket and a wet cloth?
Where were you when she cried that she didn’t want to die, and I promised her she wouldn’t, because someone had to? ”
My throat aches, and my face is wet.
I wipe at my eyes with shaking hands.
“Stop crying,” my mother snaps. “You’re smearing mascara everywhere.”
“I don’t fucking care,” I spit back. “And don’t tell me to watch my language.”
“Enough, Erin,” she says.
I shake my head. “How dare you pretend I’m the selfish one here? When I tracked every pill, every damn side effect, while you smiled at donor galas and charmed the board of directors? Where the fuck were you then? And where are you now?”
As always, my mother doesn’t soften. Doesn’t yield. I’m sobbing in the back of the car, and she doesn’t care.
“Then you’ll do this too,” she says. “You know exactly where I was. And don’t you dare pretend I don’t care. Who arranged this marriage, Erin? Who pulled everything together? Who sat with Caitlin McCarthy before anyone else dared to? Who carried it alone? Me. That’s who.”
Her voice shakes now, too, trembling on the edge of wrath. And that’s when I see the trap.
“You’ll do this too. Because you marrying Cavin McCarthy is the only way your sister lives.”
The words slam into me, colder than any knife.
If I don’t hand my life over to the only man I’ve ever truly hated, my baby sister dies.
Fury curdles into something colder—steel, resolve.
My eyes burn as tears spill unchecked. “The question isn’t if I’ll marry him. Of course I will. I’d bleed out on the altar if it saved her. I always do what needs to be done, don’t I?”
Because that’s what the eldest daughter does.
“This isn’t about the marriage, Mother. This is about you lying. About you using me as a bargaining chip to reach Bridget. Because you—”
I choke the words back before they leave my mouth. I don’t want to sound like a child, petty and unloved.
Because you love her more than you love me.
I force the thought down like poison, but the truth lingers.
I turn to the window, the glass smeared with my reflection. My face is streaked with tears, my hands clumsy and useless, as I wipe them away again.
If I have to marry Cavin McCarthy to save Bridget—fine. But I will not bleed myself dry for the McCarthys.
“You’re acting like he’s some absolute villain,” my father mutters from the front seat. “And you know this is how things work in our family.”
I shake my head. I don’t waste my breath arguing.
They want to pretend I wasn’t humiliated for years in hallways and locker rooms. Pretend I wasn’t stripped down to nothing while Cavin McCarthy laughed.
They want to pretend I have a choice. Pretend I’m the selfish one here.
No. I won’t let them twist me into that.
“And what does Cavin get out of this?” I ask.
“Were you not paying attention?” my mother snaps. She turns to me. I feel the distance between us and how different we are. Her makeup’s flawless. Her hair sculpted, unmoved by the storm she’s throwing me into, not a wrinkle on her clothes.
I’m a mess.
“The McCarthys get access to our trade routes.”
“Why?” I press.
“Don’t be stupid, Erin,” she spits. “For someone so smart, you really don’t see the forest for the trees.”
“Tara,” my father warns, chiding like a man who’s already surrendered.
My mother’s nostrils flare. “You both know what’s at stake, and you know what we hope to gain from the McCarthys. We forfeit our trade routes, but we could save Bridget.”
They forfeit trade routes, and… me. My mother folds her hands in her lap, prim and polished, as if she hasn’t just sold me like another shipment in the trade route.
The car is too quiet after that. The tires hum over smooth pavement, as if the world dares to pretend my life hasn’t just been detonated.
My father stares straight ahead, his jaw clamped, the silent executioner.
“I’m sorry,” my mother whispers finally. The words are so thin they barely exist.
I blink because I’ve never heard her say them. Not once.
“It had to be done, Erin. It had to.”
My father shifts, muttering something about timing, family needs, but I cut him off.
“You didn’t even ask me. You didn’t ask if I wanted to marry him.” My voice breaks. “You just… gave me away.”
“You said you’d do this for your sister,” my mother fires back. You said you’d do anything, in the hospital, the day she collapsed.”
She trembles now, and it breaks me in ways I hate.
I don’t want to forgive her. I don’t want to feel her pain. I want to hate her. I want to hate someone for the way my ribs feel like they’re being crushed from the inside.
“I know you’ll do this for your sister,” my mother repeats, softer this time.
“Of course I will,” I whisper.
Tears burn down my face. My hands shake.
And the car hums on, relentless.