I was not sure if it was because I couldn’t let go.

After I died, I stayed at the funeral home.

That evening, Tracy showed up to see my mom. As soon as she walked in, she ran into her arms like a scared little bird.

“Mom, is it true? Is Lillian really dead? I... I’m so scared...”

Her eyes were red, filled with tears as she looked up at my mom.

“Don’t worry, it’s all over now,” my mom said softly, wiping the tears from her face. Her fingers lingered on the scar on Tracy’s forehead, full of concern.

Tracy had been the first one to find my body.

She came over to brag about something, but the moment she walked in, she saw me lying there, blood pouring from my eyes, nose, and mouth.

She was so horrified, she tripped and slammed her head on the corner of the table.

When my mom finally arrived, the first thing she did was take Tracy to the hospital. She didn’t even think to call anyone about my body until later.

One life didn’t mean as much to her as Tracy’s little scar.

Now, Tracy was curled up in her arms, smiling as if nothing had happened.

“You shouldn’t run so fast with your leg like that,” my mom scolded, though her face was beaming with affection. She doted on Tracy completely.

“I know,” Tracy said, blinking innocently. “You never worried so much when I played with Lillian.”

At the sound of my name, my mom’s expression twisted into anger. “Don’t bring her up. Your leg wouldn’t be like this if it wasn't for her. She’s just as useless as her deadbeat father.”

Tracy laughed even harder, but my mom didn’t notice.

If she saw that, maybe she’d stop treating me this way.

But then again, maybe not.

To her, my life was a bargain for Tracy’s smile.

My mom had plenty of reasons to hate me.

The first was that she blamed my dad for being “useless” and for being unable to save her first love.

My dad had been his surgeon, and when he couldn’t pull him through, all her anger shifted onto me and him.

Her first love, Tracy’s dad.

When he died, my mom was devastated, and she ended up adopting Tracy.

She swore, right there in front of his dying body, that she’d take care of her. But the first time I took Tracy out to play, she broke her leg.

And that was the moment everything between me and my mom broke for good.

That day also happened to be mine and Tracy’s birthday.

Dad was stuck at the hospital, and my mom had to work late.

So, I was the one left to take Tracy out.

She played the sweet, innocent card, asking if I’d take her to the river for a swim.

Wanting to be the good daughter, knowing how special Tracy was to her, I agreed.

But when we got to the river, she suddenly reached out and tried to push me in.

“If you die, then Mom will only have me,” she said, smiling like she had just won.

I fought back as hard as I could, trying to drag her in with me.

But in the struggle, she fell, hitting her leg on a rock, leaving her permanently injured.

That day, my mom beat me until I could barely stand.

Even now, after all these years, I can still remember sobbing like I’d never stop. It was the first time I thought about running away, and I did.

I wandered through the streets, wiping my tears, imagining how much she’d regret it if I disappeared.

But that naive thought ended up costing me the most important person in my life.

When my dad got home and realized I was gone, for the first time, he didn’t just stay quiet.

They had a huge fight, and then he went out to find me.

I was standing in the middle of the road when he saw me.

I still remember the panic on his face as he called my name, walking toward me, dodging cars.

I finally heard him and turned around, just in time to see him coming for me.

But before I could move, a car came speeding through.

And in an instant, I lost my dad forever.

At my dad’s funeral, my mom stood there, holding his ashes, completely emotionless.

When I approached, sobbing, to pay my respects, she slapped me hard across the face.

“If your dad’s dead, why didn’t you die with him?” she asked, her voice calm, almost detached. It wasn’t grief for her husband. It was anger that I, the burden, was still around.

“Mom…” I grabbed onto her coat, crying so hard I could barely speak.

But she pried my fingers off, one by one.

“From today on, you’re no longer my daughter,” she said, loud enough for everyone to hear. Then she walked out, taking my dad’s ashes and Tracy with her.

I stayed, kneeling on the cold floor of the funeral home, tears splashing onto the tiles.

For a moment, I thought maybe I should’ve died.

But then I realized that maybe it wasn’t me who should’ve gone.

Because when I looked up at the door, there was Tracy, smirking like she’d won.

And she had.

She’d turned my mom into hers, completely.

To my mom, I was nothing but a worthless mistake, a walking reminder of everything wrong in her life.

For a long time, I was obsessed with clearing my name.

But every time I tried to explain myself, all my mom heard was me making excuses.

She thought I was just like my dad, born worthless.

To this day, she still believes my dad was so jealous of Tracy’s dad, her first love, that he didn’t try hard enough to save him during surgery.

And by her logic, I inherited that same “inferior blood” and was destined to ruin Tracy’s life.

I used to wonder how a mother could abandon her own child and gave everything to an adopted one.

But now that I was dead, I didn’t wonder anymore.

And I didn’t care anymore.

The night I died, my mom threw Tracy the perfect birthday party.

People who didn’t know what happened were posting “Happy Birthday, Lillian!” on social media, but my mom deleted every single one of them.

It was clear to everyone that she was done with me.

The next day at work, she came in wearing a shiny new gold necklace.

“Tracy’s so sweet,” she bragged. “Even on her birthday, she bought me such a beautiful gift. Not like Lillian, she never gave me anything but grief.”

She was all smiles, proudly showing off the necklace. But the whole office fell silent.

They remembered it was my birthday too.

And they remembered how I always treated my mom.

“Mabel, Lillian just died. Maybe ease up on the comments,” Uncle Jordan finally spoke up for me.

Hearing my name, her smile faded. She shot him a sharp look. “Jordan, why are you always defending her?”

“Lillian was a good kid. Why can’t you see that?”

Jordan stood up, pointing toward the tree outside the window. “See that tree? Every time Lillian came to see you, you’d tell her to leave. After a while, she was so scared, she’d just hide behind that tree and watch you from there. She was just a little girl, Mabel. How could you not feel anything for her?”

His voice cracked, his eyes filling with tears.

My own tears fell, uncontrollably.

At least someone in this world had loved me.

Uncle Jordan was the one person who really understood me.

He saw everything I did, and because of that, he cared about me in a way no one else did.

My mom didn’t like it, but he would just shrug and say, “Little girls deserve to be loved by everyone.”

Eventually, she stopped trying to change how he treated me. But this time, he crossed a line.

She slammed her hand on the table, standing up so fast the chair nearly tipped over. She pointed at him, her voice shaking with anger.

“Did I ever ask her to come? Didn’t I tell her to leave me alone? If you cared so much, why didn’t you take her in before she died?”

Jordan’s whole body shook with fury, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to find the words.

After a long moment, he finally said, “You’ll regret this.”

“I’ll never regret it,” my mom shot back, her voice cold.

They stopped fighting after that. She didn’t even mention the necklace anymore.

She had something else on her mind. She’d put my apartment up for sale, the one I used to live in. And it had to be cleared out today.

She was so angry she grabbed her purse, and stormed out of the funeral home, stepping right on my ashes on her way out.

I followed her back to my old place, the apartment where I’d last lived.

It was a tiny, worn-down unit in the outskirts.

The moment she opened the door, the stench hit us both, rotten, foul.

The cake was still sitting on the table, candles melted to the bottom.

I had lit them that day, hoping she’d show up. But she never did.

Now the cake was moldy, crawling with maggots and flies. The sour smell filled the entire room.

My mom pinched her nose and avoided the mess, moving straight to my things.

I’d always kept the place tidy, so all she had to do was throw everything into boxes and toss it.

She did it all with a look of disgust until a small pink notebook slipped out from one of the boxes.

My heart leaped to my throat.

She frowned, picked it up, and started flipping through the pages. And that’s when she found it, my secret, the one she never knew about.