I wrenched free of him.

"Whether I mean anything to you, you know that better than anyone."

"Edmund, I thought you were different from other men. Turns out I was wrong about you."

His brow knotted, and something flickered deep in his eyes before he pushed it back down.

"So it's that the gift I gave you was too cheap?"

"Fine. In a couple of days I'll buy you a Bulgari bracelet. Happy now?"

His voice dropped, coaxing.

"You're about to start at the New York university soon, and I'm heading back to New York to take over the family business right around then. We'll have all the time in the world together. Stop throwing a tantrum."

A moment later he added one more line.

"I honestly thought you weren't the type to care so much about material things."

I lifted my head and looked at him, not blinking.

Every sentence was exactly like before, and back then I never caught it. Every word out of him was a put-down.

The joke of it was, the old me hadn't even felt anything wrong.

"I said, we're done."

Then I turned and walked away.

Behind me came his voice, grinding through his teeth.

"Effie Pruitt, you're going to regret this!"

Back in my dorm, I opened my laptop. My application to the Western research program had been approved.

The place was remote, the conditions rough, no signal of any kind, hardly anyone willing to go.

Which suited me. I didn't want anyone to be able to find me either.

The days that followed were packed. Thesis defense, project paperwork, busy from morning to night.

Edmund didn't come looking for me again, and I stopped thinking about him.

Until one day, someone kicked the dorm door open.

Edmund stood in the doorway, eyes bloodshot.

"Effie Pruitt, get out here!"

I stared at him, thrown.

"Is something wrong?"

He didn't say a word. He seized my wrist, dragged me out, and threw me into the car.

He floored it.

At the hospital, he shoved me into a ward.

He pointed at Flora Pruitt lying in the bed.

"If you've got a grudge, take it out on me. Why hit your own sister with a car?"

I had no idea what he was talking about.

"What are you talking about?"

In the bed, Flora lay with her right leg in a thick cast, her face bone-white.

Two police officers sat beside her, taking a statement.

Flora's voice was faint.

"I was crossing the street when I saw a car coming straight at me. I tried to dodge and still got clipped. I got one look, and the person in the driver's seat... looked like my sister..."

The instant my parents saw me, the hatred in their eyes came at me like knives.

"Effie Pruitt! How could you be so cruel?!"

"She's your own sister, and you ran her down with a car?!"

"She's about to leave for her overseas tour. You're trying to ruin her whole life!"

Then the police spoke up too, saying the security footage had caught a blurry figure whose build was a close match to mine.

Flora's voice drifted out, light as air.

"Don't blame my sister... I'm sure she didn't mean to..."

I stood where I was, cold all over.

My throat felt stuffed with cotton. I couldn't get out a single word.

Just then, the phone in my pocket buzzed.

A message from a friend.

"Effie! Go look online, now! Something's happened!"

I opened the link she'd sent. The headline was glaring.

The article read like it had all the details too, claiming I'd used my disability to milk sympathy, that I'd cozied up to a professor to trade for a project slot, and that I'd frozen out and bullied the other students in my group.

Below it hung the story about me hitting my sister with a car, along with a blurred private video.

The face was fuzzed out, but anyone who knew me would recognize me in a glance.

The internet went up in flames.

"Shameless, honestly! Bad enough she gets special treatment, but this cruel on top of it?"

"I heard she bullied her own sister every single day. Drove her to the point she couldn't take it anymore."

"Ran over her own sister over a birthday present? Her heart must be made of stone."

Every comment was uglier than the last.

They locked me in a detention cell.

My parents watched them take me away, their eyes cold, like they were looking at a stranger. Not once, from start to finish, did they speak up for me.

I was pushed into a cramped little cell.

It was cold and damp, black on every side, my hand finding no wall when I reached out.

When we were kids, Flora pulled a prank and shut me in the basement for eight straight hours. That time my heart nearly stopped.

The old fear came flooding back, and I huddled in the corner, shaking uncontrollably.

I don't know how long it was before Edmund came.

Light stabbed in, and I lifted a hand on reflex to shield my eyes.

His voice was cold.

"Effie Pruitt, you hurt Flora. You should pay the price."

I was trembling all over, terrified he'd leave me alone in here.

"Edmund, I was wrong… once I'm out I'll apologize to Flora to her face, I'll do anything you want… please don't leave me in here, I'm scared of the dark…"

When he'd heard me out, he suddenly let out a laugh, like he'd just heard the biggest joke in the world.

"Enough, drop the act. You pulled all this, and now you're putting on a show for who? Sit in there and reflect for a few days."

My throat closed up, my voice so hoarse it was barely there.

"You used to say you'd protect me. Was all of that just a lie?"

He paused, his voice lower than before.

"Effie, you did something wrong. Taking some punishment is only fair. You'll be out in a few days anyway. Look after yourself."

He turned and left, and the light vanished again.

I curled up in the corner, tears falling without a sound.

I thought that was as bad as it could get.

But I was moved to another cell, and the women I was housed with fixed their sights on me.

They beat me until my head was split and bleeding.

And kicked three of my ribs until they broke.

"Let me be straight with you. Somebody on the outside told us to take real good 'care' of you!"

I clenched my fists, hatred surging up in me.

Edmund, I hate you.

The guards came in once, said I started it, said I had it coming.

With broken ribs, all I could do was lie stiff on the floor, unable even to turn over, kept awake by the pain at night.

For seven whole days, I barely closed my eyes.

Only when my body gave out completely did they carry me out and take me to a hospital.

I lay in the hospital bed, and my phone screen lit up.

"Heard you're out. Come apologize to Flora and we'll put this behind us. She's soft-hearted, she doesn't blame you anymore."

I looked at that line, and a sharp pain shot through my ribs.

I didn't reply with a single word. I just blocked him.

Not long after, my advisor called. The Western program was going ahead as planned, and my place hadn't changed.

But I had to leave immediately.

I gritted my teeth and pulled the IV out of the back of my hand.

Got dressed, called a car, and headed straight for the airport.

I brought nothing. My backpack held only my ID and my phone.

Before boarding, I threw the phone straight into a trash can.

On Edmund's end, after that message went out, there was never any reply.

He waited three days. Nothing.

He went to the Pruitt house to ask, and they said I'd never come home.

My roommate said I'd cleared out all my things and never shown up again.

He started to feel something was wrong, and turned and went to the department office.

"Excuse me, has Effie Pruitt completed her enrollment paperwork for the university? Where is she now?"

The teacher looked up at him, pushed his glasses up.

"She gave up on the university ages ago. You didn't know?"