Chapter 1 - The Joke That Burned Twice
My younger sister ripped off my cover-up in front of nearly three hundred people.
“Look at her!” Sienna shouted into the microphone. “Freddy Krueger in a bikini!”
A few teenagers laughed.
Then more joined them.
I stood barefoot beside the pool at our family estate outside Greenwich, Connecticut, wearing a white swimsuit that exposed the burn scars covering my chest, ribs, stomach, and left shoulder.
Phones rose around the glass dance floor.
My father looked at his shoes.
My mother turned away.
Neither stopped her.
That hurt more than Sienna’s joke.
For fifteen years, my parents had taught me to cover the scars because they made other people “uncomfortable.”
Long sleeves in July.
No swim team.
No strapless prom dress.
Stand behind someone in photographs.
I had followed every rule.
Until Sienna humiliated me at her two-million-dollar Sweet Sixteen.
I climbed onto the DJ platform and took the microphone.
“You want everyone to know how I got these?”
Her smile weakened.
“You were one year old. Your nursery caught fire after midnight.”
I looked at the girl who had spent half her life mocking the body that saved hers.
“I was seven. I heard you crying.”
Sienna stopped breathing.
“I went into that room, covered you with my body, and carried you out.”
Her sunglasses slipped from her hand.
“I have these scars because you don’t.”
Sienna dropped to her knees.
Behind her, Dad pushed through the guests.
His face had gone gray.
He grabbed the spare microphone.
“Elena.”
Mom whispered his name sharply.
He ignored her.
“There’s something about that fire we never told you.”
I stared at him.
Dad looked toward the hundreds of phones recording.
Then toward Mom.
“Your mother was in Sienna’s nursery before the fire started.”
May you like
Mom’s wineglass slipped from her fingers.
And suddenly I understood why, for fifteen years, my scars had been treated like evidence instead of skin.
