My parents canceled my eighteenth birthday at exactly 4:17 p.m., just three hours before the cake was meant to be served.
I remember the precise time because I was standing in the kitchen of our suburban home outside Columbus, Ohio, dressed in the pale blue dress I had paid for myself with money from weekend shifts at a coffee shop. The dining room had already been decorated. Silver balloons drifted near the ceiling. My name, Mara, curved across a banner my best friend had helped me put up the previous night. For once, I had allowed myself to believe the evening would be mine.
Then my younger sister, Brielle, collapsed onto the hallway floor and started screaming that it was unfair.
Continue on the next page:
