Charles's foot slammed down on my prosthetic leg.

"How can you be so ungrateful, Vicky?"

He stood behind me, his voice climbing higher and higher.

"Today's our birthday, and it's the day Mom suffered to bring us into the world! How can you upset her like this?"

"You know perfectly well we'd never let a cripple like you go out and earn money. We'll take care of you your whole life. And you go and spout that garbage about supporting yourself? You want the whole neighborhood pointing fingers at Mom and Dad behind their backs?"

My eyes stayed on that job offer.

Before I could say a word, my brother stomped down on my prosthetic again.

"Dad went begging to everyone he knew just so you wouldn't fall out of step with the rest of the world, and now the job's beneath you?"

The prosthetic wrenched sideways, and my stump twisted with it into a sickening angle.

The pain blacked out my vision. I dropped into a chair, reaching to get the prosthetic off.

By the time I finally worked it loose, the stump underneath was a wash of red.

My strength gave out, and the prosthetic slipped from my grip and hit the floor with a jarring clatter.

My father suddenly brought his hand down hard on the table.

The bowls and chopsticks jumped.

"Victoria, what do you think you're doing!"

He pointed at me and roared,

"You disrespect your mother, you turn up your nose at the job I found you, and now your brother can't even say a word to you? You rip off your leg and throw it on the floor. You looking to bring the roof down?"

I tried to speak, but the pain in my shoulder wouldn't let me breathe.

My mother rushed to hold my father back, crying as she spoke.

"Enough, enough, this child hasn't been herself since she lost the leg..."

"She took the prosthetic off on purpose, just to make us feel guilty..."

Before she finished.

She raised her hand and slapped herself twice across the face.

Then she looked at me, and said each word slowly and deliberately,

"Mom shouldn't have scolded you just now. Mom's sorry. If you don't want the job, you don't have to take it. That's settled, isn't it?"

"Are you satisfied now?"

"If you're not, I'll go dish up your rice right now and kneel here and feed it to you!"

And then she turned and went to the kitchen and came back with a bowl of rice for me.

Just as her knees started to bend, my father grabbed her and wouldn't let her kneel.

"Making your own mother slap herself and get down on her knees. Victoria, you've really outdone yourself. What's next, you want me and your brother kneeling to wait on you too? Have you no fear of cutting your own life short!"

"I didn't make her hit herself, and I didn't make her kneel. The reason I don't want the job is because—"

"Shut up! You still have the nerve to argue!"

My father couldn't take any more. He kicked me square in the arm.

Right on the injured shoulder.

But I didn't feel the pain.

I sat there staring at my mother's right cheek, where there wasn't even a red mark, my mind gone completely blank.

Then three years of being a cripple came flooding back.

The first time I fell, my stump struck the corner of the coffee table, and the blood soaked through my pant leg.

I said, Mom, it hurts so much.

She slapped herself once and said she was sorry.

I bit my lip and went quiet, letting the taste of blood fill my mouth rather than say another word about the pain.

When I came back from a checkup at the hospital, the doctor said I needed counseling.

I said I wanted to see a therapist.

She slapped herself twice again, said a therapist cost several hundred a session, said she deserved to die for not taking better care of me.

So I let it go.

Later, when I could finally walk on the prosthetic, I asked her if she could buy me a new one, because the old one rubbed me raw and hurt to walk on.

Her eyes went red again and she slapped herself once, said that to fix my leg my father worked overtime every day, so much he might as well sleep at the office.

So I gritted my teeth and got used to the pain of metal grinding against bone and flesh.

Before, I thought that if I was obedient, if I was good, if I never caused them trouble, I might earn a sliver of love.

I even thought her slapping herself was proof that she loved me.

But now, I finally understood. It was emotional blackmail.

Every time I cried out in pain.

Every time I said I was hurting.

Every time I wanted them to look at me a little longer.

She would turn it on herself like this.

Because she knew it would shut me up.

But the truth was, every time she slapped herself, she never put any force behind it.

I picked up the prosthetic, clearly broken now, and said nothing. I dragged myself upright and hopped on one leg to the bedroom door.

The pain nearly buckled me.

Just as I caught the doorframe, Charles came rushing over.

"Vicky, are you okay?"

The force of him slammed me flat to the floor.

He came down hard on top of me.

My shoulder hit the ground again, and everything went black behind my eyes.

I clenched my teeth and made no sound.

The tears came first.

But Mom and Dad rushed straight over to lift Charles up, checking him over.

"Charlie, are you hurt? Did the fall hurt?"

Once they were sure he was fine, Dad scowled and snapped at me.

"Nobody hit you, nobody yelled at you. What are you crying about now?"

"Moping around all day, like the whole family owes you a fortune."

The whole family was cursing at me.

He and Mom had both seen Charles stomp my prosthetic.

They had both seen him knock me down.

And still they called it nobody hitting, nobody yelling.

Lying there on the floor, I heard something warm drip onto the tiles, and I suddenly laughed out loud.

Mom's eyes finally moved off Charles and onto me.

When she made out the blood on the floor, something like pity flickered across her face, and she hurried to help me up.

Then Charles shot his arm out, holding it up in front of me.

"Vicky, if you hate me and don't want me helping you, just say so. Why go and pinch me on the sly?"

There was a clear pinch mark on his arm, the skin broken just a little, a thin line of blood seeping out.

I hadn't touched him.

But Mom stared at that mark and her eyes went red in an instant.

She turned and slapped me across the face.

"Victoria, what is the matter with you!"

"Every single year you can't let one birthday go by in peace!"

My face jerked to the side, my ears ringing.

My cheek burned, my mouth full of the taste of blood.

Charles stood behind Mom and smiled at me.

That smile was all smugness and dare.

He slid an arm around Mom's shoulders and soothed her.

"Mom, don't be upset. Vicky just did badly on her exams, she's in a bad mood. My birthday wish was for our family to be peaceful from now on."

Mom wiped her tears and nodded.

"Charlie, you're the one who really cares. I don't know how other people's daughters turn out so warm and sweet!"

Dad kicked the prosthetic off to the side and said impatiently,

"Enough! Everyone leave her alone. Let's eat!"

In the end Mom couldn't quite bring herself to leave it. She ordered gauze, iodine, and painkillers, and dropped them on my bed.

"A little cut like this you can deal with at home. Save the money for fixing the prosthetic."

She took the prosthetic and pulled the door shut for me.

I stayed on the floor, not moving.

My head was full of this day, three years ago.

That day Mom had sent me to take Charles out to buy the cake he wanted, and when the runaway truck came barreling at us, there was only one thought in my head: my brother can't get hurt.

I was fifteen that year.

I saved Charles. Even the cake he loved came out only slightly dented.

But I lost a leg.

At first, because I'd saved his life, my parents and Charles doted on me, careful with me.

That was the happiest month I'd ever had. So happy I thought losing a leg was worth it.

But once I was out of the hospital and back home, everything went back to just the way it was before.

No. There was one difference.

Charles and I used to each have a bedroom on the upper floor.

But after I came home, with my bad leg, I could only live in the storage room on the ground floor.

And my old room became Charles's storage closet.

After dinner, my parents drove off together to take Charles to a karaoke bar to party with his friends.

Before they left, Mom called out to me the way she always did.

"Vicky, if it's no trouble, clear the table, wash up the dishes, and give the floor a mop."

She never openly forced me to do anything. It was always, is it any trouble for you? Can you manage?

For one look of approval, I'd been washing dishes and mopping floors since I was five.

I never stopped, not even after I lost the leg.

And what did it ever get me?

Nothing at all.

So they wouldn't notice I'd gone, I did every chore she'd asked. Then I packed my clothes with a few quick motions, wiped the dust off the crutches that had sat forgotten for so long, took the only three hundred-odd dollars in cash I had, and walked out the door.

When my parents got home and saw the house clean and tidy, they exchanged a smile.

The next second, Dad's phone buzzed. It was the hospital.

"Hello, is this Charles Finch's family? He's been stabbed. He's lost too much blood. He needs emergency surgery!"