When I opened my eyes again, I was floating in midair.
Not far away was Agatha's room. The hallway outside it was packed with medical staff standing at attention, ready to respond at a moment's notice.
I watched Blake rush through the door, his face tight with worry, and my eyes burned.
Just a few steps away from where he stood, I had died in silence.
He hadn't cared. His heart, his eyes, his every thought belonged to his adoptive sister.
Blake knelt beside the hospital bed, cradling Agatha's face in both hands, his gaze full of anguish.
"Agatha, you're finally awake. You scared me half to death."
"Please, I'm begging you, don't ever do anything like that again."
His voice held a tenderness I had never once been given.
Agatha burst into tears, delicate as rain on pear blossoms.
"I'm fine. I just missed Mom and Dad so much."
The same act as always. The same performance.
For five years, every time Blake showed me even a shred of mercy, she would pull something like this and shove me right back into the abyss.
Agatha eyed the blood bags piled beside her hospital bed, a smug little smile curling at the corner of her lips.
She's dying to see me dead, yet the words that come out of her mouth are dripping with hypocrisy.
"Did Elaine donate a lot of blood for me again?"
"This is all my fault. I'm always causing trouble for everyone. She must have suffered so much because of me. Do you think she hates me?"
Blake patted her head, his eyes brimming with indulgence.
"She has no right to hate you! This is what she and her mother owe you!"
I hovered in midair, trembling uncontrollably.
Owed her? But what happened back then—my mother was the victim.
After my father died, Mom worked in a factory during the day and took a cashier job at a bar at night, just to support me. She was honest and hardworking, wanting nothing more than to give me the best life she could manage.
Working in a place like that, she was careful about everything. She wouldn't even wear anything other than the plainest clothes.
But none of that mattered. Someone still set his sights on her.
The man who assaulted her was Agatha's father.
When Mom fought back, he wrapped his hands around her throat and threatened to kill me.
To buy her silence, he gave her a check afterward.
Mom was too afraid to go to the police. She swallowed her pain in silence, and the weight of it dragged her into severe depression.