My hand drifted instinctively to my collarbone, my fingers pressing against the thick cotton of my hoodie.

Beneath the fabric, I could feel the jagged, hardened ridges of the massive burn scars that mapped my body. A violent, permanent topography of trauma.

I swallowed the heavy, metallic lump of sorrow in my throat. I couldn’t tell her the truth.

Twelve years ago, the psychiatrists had warned my parents plainly that forcing Chloe to confront the repressed memories of the fire that nearly killed us could irreparably shatter her fragile mind.

Her amnesia was a psychological fortress, built to protect a six-year-old girl from the sheer terror of smoke and collapsing, burning wood.

So I’d carried the physical and emotional burden in absolute silence. I let her hate me, because her hatred meant she was sane. Her vanity meant she was alive.