Chapter 7 Chloe
I heard her before I saw her. Luckily, I was just sitting on the floor, staring into space and planning in my head. Everything I didn’t want her to see was hidden already. It had to be a bit after three in the afternoon.
The door banged open. My heart revved up—not because I was scared, but because I was scared that this might be the time I’d kick this bitch down the stairs.
“Well,” Olivia sang, her voice bright. “Look at you. Still right where you always are.”
I didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe too deeply.
"Look what I brought you, freak."
She dropped a restaurant container on the floor. It popped open. A piece of steak landed on its side—I could see the teeth marks in it. Next to it, a hunk of bread. Mashed potatoes clung to the Styrofoam. My stomach turned.
"Eat up," she sang. "Wouldn't want you to waste away before the big twenty-five hits."
She flounced around my room like she owned it. Which, in her mind, she did.
"God, this place is depressing." She picked up a cracked porcelain doll from my shelf, made a face, and dropped it. It hit the floor and shattered. She didn't apologize. Didn't even look. "I don't know how you stand it up here. Then again, I guess you don't know any better, do you?" She laughed.
I stared at the wall. Counted the seconds. One. Two. Three.
She opened my trunk—the one Mary brought years ago. It was lined with a false bottom and broken things and clothes to hide what mattered. My lungs seized, but my face showed nothing.
"Just rags," Olivia muttered, pushing clothes around. "Anyway."
She moved to my desk—the one with the loose board beneath it. Everything I owned was hiding there: my tablet, my mother's jewelry, and keepsakes. She stopped at the window.
"My future husband and I went to the club today. His name is Killian. He was supposed to marry you, but you’re not worthy." She ran her fingers along the dusty glass, leaving trails in the grime. "At the club, I introduced him to my friends. He couldn't keep his hands off me."
I wanted to laugh. I wanted to scream. Wanted to ask if "couldn't keep his hands off you" meant the same thing it meant when I was in his bed last night.
But I was a doll. Dolls didn't speak.
"He's so handsome," Olivia continued, turning to admire herself in my cracked mirror.
She fluffed her hair and smoothed her dress.
"And rich. Like, disgustingly rich. Daddy says the merger will set us up for generations. Not that we’ll need it soon—Landry money already does that. But more is more, right?"
She spoke as if she had my kinfolks' blood actually running through her veins. She glanced at me, waiting for a reaction she'd never get.
"Right," she answered for herself.
She wandered again, picking things up, putting them down, and opening drawers I'd long since emptied of anything meaningful.
"You know what he said about me? He said I was captivating. Said my poetry moved him. Said he'd never met anyone like me."
My jaw ached from clenching. Those were my words. My poems. My pain turned into pretty lines for her to steal.
"It’s going to be a big wedding." She said it like a victory lap.
I leaned forward, rocking back and forth, humming.
"Ugh, stop that," she snapped. She reached down, her manicured hand grabbing a handful of my hair.
She yanked my head back, forcing me to look at her smug, beautiful face.
“This is why Daddy hates you. That’s why everything that was supposed to be yours—the money, the mansion, the husband, the fame—is all mine.
Because I'm better than you. Prettier. Smarter. Sane."
She let go. My head dropped forward.
"Daddy gave it all to me. Because I'm the one who matters. You don’t. Your mother didn’t."
I let my eyes rise to meet hers.
“I’m improving your life by living it. You should thank me.” She patted my head like I was a dog. A pet. A thing. "Enjoy your dinner."
She turned on her heel, the door slamming shut behind her. The lock turned. Click.
I waited. Ten seconds. Twenty. A minute.
I tried to stand, but my legs gave out. I hit the floor hard, knees cracking against the wood, but I didn't feel it. I couldn't feel anything except the pressure building in my chest—a wildfire trapped behind glass, searching for air, for escape, for something to burn.
The plate was still there. The chewed steak. The hard bread. I picked it up and threw it against the wall. No sound. I’d learned how to destroy without being heard.
But I needed more. My hands found the broken porcelain doll. I squeezed until the shards bit into my palm, blood welling between my fingers. The pain helped. It focused something. It gave the rage a place to go.
Everything that was supposed to be yours.
I grabbed the edge of my mattress and flipped it. It was so light and thin; the frame barely creaked.
The money. The mansion. The husband.
I punched the wall. Once. I couldn't think past the roaring in my ears.
The fame.
My poems. My grief. My mother's death poured onto pages and she'd just... taken them. Published them. Let the world call her a genius while I rotted in an attic.
I slid down the wall, landing in the corner. My chest heaved. My hands shook. Blood dripped from my knuckles onto the floorboards, and I watched it fall like I was watching someone else's life.
The tears came then. Not pretty tears. Ugly tears. I was gasping. I screamed in my head. I hated them. I pressed both hands over my mouth and rocked—back and forth, back and forth—while my whole body shook with the force of everything I couldn't say.
You stole my life.
She has my mother's name. She has my mother's money.
You stole my mother's face from my memory—I can barely see her anymore, do you know that? Fourteen years, and her smile is fading, and all I have left is Mary's stories and a locket I can't wear. You stole my voice. My words. My grief turned into your profit.
"I'm going to kill them, Momma," I whispered, the sound of my own voice cracking after hours of disuse. "I'm going to take the needle and I'm going to sew their mouths shut with their own lies."
I brushed away the tears and closed my eyes tight.
Killian’s face swam behind them. The way he'd looked at me in the moonlight.
The way his hands had felt on my waist—strong, sure, like he was afraid I'd break but couldn't bear to let go.
The way he'd stopped, even when I'd given him every reason not to.
"You don't owe me anything. And nobody gets to tell you how to repay kindness."
He wouldn’t take from me. I could see that in his words.
I pressed my forehead to my knees and let the tears keep coming. Because they had to go somewhere. Because if I didn't cry, I'd scream. And if I screamed, they'd hear. And if they heard, they'd move me somewhere darker. Somewhere with no windows. No tree. No moonlight. No chance.
I don't know how long I sat there. Long enough for the blood to dry on my hands. Long enough for the rage to subside. I heard my momma's voice.
"When I'm gone, Chloe, you become a doll. You hear me?"
"Yes, Momma."
"A doll doesn't speak. Doesn't complain. Doesn't have a mind to break."
"I remember."
"When the time comes and you have the chance to be free, take it. Do anything to do it."
"I will."
I stood up. Walked to the basin. Washed the blood from my hands. Straightened my mattress. Swept the broken porcelain into a corner where it would look like an accident.
Then I went to the window, my mind drifting to Killian. Olivia thought she'd won. Olivia thought she'd taken everything. That was fine. The higher she climbed, the more air she'd need when I finally cut the cord and pushed her off her pedestal.