Chapter 1 - The First Cold Morning
The desert sun cut through the sheer curtains of our hotel room in Santa Fe, painting warm yellow stripes across the wooden floorboards.
On the nightstand, my phone vibrated continuously, skittering across the polished surface like a trapped beetle.
Madison.
Dad.
Mom.
Madison.
Ethan set his paper coffee cup down, his gaze fixed on me with a quiet, grounding intensity. "You don't have to answer her, Sophie."
"I know," I whispered, my thumb hovering over the red decline button. "But if I don't answer now, she'll spend the next three hours telling my parents I'm hiding. I want her to hear my voice when she realizes the safety net is gone."
I slid the green bar across the screen and pressed the phone to my ear.
"What did you do?!" Madison’s voice tore through the speaker, high-pitched, breathless, and shrill with unadulterated fury. "I just got a notification from the leasing office at The Foundry! They said my application was canceled because the guarantor withdrew! The movers are coming on Tuesday, Sophie! What did you do?!"
I took a slow, deliberate breath, letting the silence stretch between us until her heavy breathing filled the line.
"I withdrew my guarantee," I said, my voice dropping into a register so flat and measured it surprised even me. "I also sent a formal notice to the bank freezing the trust's tuition disbursement for your master's program pending your academic fraud investigation."
"You... you can't do that!" she shrieked. "That apartment is my home! My stuff is packed! Dad said you were just upset about the cake—"
"The cake was twelve hundred dollars," I interrupted smoothly. "The damaged timber flooring at San Aurelio Station is three thousand. The medical bill for the catering assistant whose arm was sliced open by the glass you threw will be sent directly to your email address by my attorney."
"Sophie!" my mother’s frantic voice cut in. She had been listening on speakerphone. "Sophie, sweetheart, stop this right now! You are taking this way too far! Your sister had a breakdown yesterday! She’s sick, Sophie! She was emotional because she felt left out of your big day—"
"Mom," I said, cutting her off instantly. "Madison isn't sick. She’s thirty-one years old. And as of 7:30 this morning, she is officially on her own."
"You heartless bitch!" Madison screamed in the background. "Dad! Tell her!"
"Sophie," my father’s deep, commanding voice replaced my mother’s on the line. He used the exact tone he had used whenever I complained about giving Madison my savings in college. "Listen to me carefully. You will pick up your phone, call the leasing manager at The Foundry, and put that guarantee back on. Your sister has nowhere to live. You made a scene yesterday by having security drag her out, and now you're trying to ruin her life out of spite."
"I didn't make a scene, Dad," I replied, standing up from the bed and looking out over the Santa Fe roofs. "Madison threw a glass at a worker and ruined a historical venue. And you hugged her."
"She was crying!" Dad shouted.
"She was calculating," I said. "And so am I. The lease is canceled. The trust is frozen. Do not call me again unless it's to provide an insurance claim for the venue damage."
"If you walk away from us over a piece of cake, Sophie," my father said, his voice lowering into a harsh threat, "you don't have a family anymore."
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I looked at Ethan. He stepped over, taking my free hand in his, his fingers warm and steady.
"Then I guess I'm an orphan," I said, and hung up.
