Chapter 2

Sabrina's POV

"Dummy, you're our daughter," my mother said, reaching across the coffee table toward me. "Of course you'll inherit our estate."

My father nodded. "That's right."

Gilbert shifted beside me. "Sabrina, don't talk nonsense."

I looked at them and their faces trying so hard to seem sincere.

For a second, something flickered in my memory, something old and almost forgotten.

There was a time when they looked at me like that and meant it. Before the accident.

I was seven when it happened. My birthday was coming up. Yvonne's family was driving to our house that day to bring my birthday present. They never made it.

The truck came out of nowhere. Yvonne's parents died instantly and Yvonne survived, but after that, she was always getting sick and became really frail.

My grandmother said it at the funeral, "They were rushing to get to Sabrina's birthday party. That's why this happened."

After that, my parents brought Yvonne home to live with us and I stopped having birthdays because it made her sad.

Mom always bought Yvonne the best stuff and got me the cheap things.

"Why does Yvonne get nice things and I don't?" I asked my mother later.

She didn't even look up from her magazine. "Sabrina, you owe Yvonne."

I was fifteen when I saved up my allowance for three months to buy myself a dress. It was light blue with small white flowers, the prettiest thing I'd ever owned. I wore it once.

Yvonne saw it hanging in my closet. "That fabric would be perfect for my doll's clothes."

I laughed because I thought she was joking.

The next day I came home from school and found my mother in the living room with scissors in her hand. My dress lay in pieces on the floor.

"Yvonne needed it," my mother said simply. "You should learn to share."

I stood there looking at the blue fabric scattered everywhere and the white flowers cut in half. I never bought myself another pretty dress after that.

I met Gilbert at work three years ago. He was visiting our office for a business meeting and I was walking past the conference room when our eyes met through the glass door.

He asked me out that same day.

"I've never seen anyone like you," he said, holding my hand across the table at dinner. "You're exactly what I've been looking for."

He pursued me relentlessly with flowers at my desk and messages every morning and weekend trips to the coast. I thought I'd finally found someone who would choose me first.

Six months later, we got engaged.

My parents threw a party to celebrate and that's when Gilbert met Yvonne for the first time. She was wearing a white dress that day and looked fragile and delicate standing next to my mother.

Gilbert stared at her for a long moment.

"Her eyes look like yours," he said to me later that night. "But hers are more... vulnerable. More sad."

After the engagement, Gilbert started coming to family dinners and asking about Yvonne's health and sitting next to her instead of me.

Sometimes I couldn't tell if he was my fiancé or hers.

I cried about it once and told my mother it wasn't fair.

She looked at me with disgust. "You're being selfish. Yvonne has no one. Gilbert is just being kind."

I screamed at Gilbert the next time he canceled our date to take Yvonne to a doctor's appointment. He didn't speak to me for a week after that.

My father called me dramatic. My mother called me jealous. Gilbert called me exhausting.

I stopped crying after that and I stopped screaming. It didn't change anything anyway.

Standing in my parents' living room now, I felt that old sadness trying to surface and all those years of pain pushing up through my chest. But then I remembered.

I'm dying.

Three months left, maybe less. These people and their opinions and their love or lack of it, none of it mattered anymore. I didn't need their approval or their affection or anything from them at all.

At dinner that evening, the dining room felt too warm. My mother had made Yvonne's favorite dishes and the table was crowded with food I didn't want to eat.

"Sabrina," my father said, cutting into his steak. "We need you to lend Yvonne the diamond necklace."

I looked up from my plate.

"The one Gilbert gave you for your engagement," my mother added quickly. "Yvonne has a masquerade ball tomorrow night and she needs something elegant."

Gilbert set down his fork. "It's just for one evening. She'll give it back."

I turned my head slowly toward Yvonne. Her eyes were bright with triumph.

"She can have it and keep it.," I said, my voice flat. "I'll go get it later."

Gilbert's face darkened immediately. "Yvonne is just borrowing it, Sabrina. Why are you saying this out of spite? That necklace is our engagement gift."

I picked up my water glass and took a sip. "Oh," I said.

Gilbert stared at me, waiting for me to argue or apologize or explain, but I didn't do any of those things.

My mother changed the subject quickly and asked Yvonne about her dress for the ball. I pushed food around my plate until dinner ended and nobody noticed I didn't eat anything.

The next morning, I drove to City Hall alone. The marriage registration form sat in my bag.

I handed the form to the clerk, who printed out the marriage certificate and slid it to me. I folded it carefully and put it in my bag.

When I got back to my parents' house, I went straight to my room, the small room with no windows that used to be a storage closet. I opened my desk drawer and pushed aside old notebooks and pens and created a space at the very back where I tucked the certificate inside.

Yvonne and Gilbert's marriage certificate. Proof that my fiancé was now legally married to my cousin.

I closed the drawer and sat on my bed. The exhaustion crashed into me all at once and my body felt heavy and my head ached. I lay down and closed my eyes.

I don't know how much time had passed when the knocking startled me awake, loud and urgent.

"Sabrina!" My father's voice sounded sharp and commanding. "Get out here! Now!"

I sat up slowly, my heart pounding.

"Sabrina!" My mother this time, her voice higher and almost panicked. "There's an emergency! Open the door!"