Chapter 2
This welcome party for Senna was seriously over the top.
The old me would’ve definitely thrown a tantrum, demanding Dad throw me an even more spectacular party.
Not anymore.
Being a ghost is actually pretty great-floating up here gives you a clearer view of what’s really going on.
So I could tell-this wasn’t a welcome party.
This was a fucking sales pitch!
Dad was all smiles as he introduced Senna to all the VIPS and business moguls around Manhattan.
le looked like he was marketing some rare collectible.
m betting if Preston didn’t come from old money, all those Wall Street bigshots and tech entrepreneurs tonight would’ve been Dad’s backup options for Senna.
h, Senna, you’re so lucky.
hree years ago, I shielded you from all this. Three years later, Preston’s doing the same.
ad really raised you well-you know right from wrong, good from evil.
o when you find out your father killed your mother and then killed your sister, what will you do?
ister, will you get revenge for me?
fter the party ended, Senna asked Dad where I was.
ad paused for a moment.
is eyes were full of contempt, like Senna had mentioned something disgusting:
Don’t bring up that ungrateful brat. You know what your sister’s like, right?”
she’s probably off screwing around with some guy.”
ooking at Dad’s calm face tinged with disgust, I felt nothing.
ly dear father,
rhy don’t you dare tell sister that I’m dead?
he day I died, you collected quite a few favors with that poker face of yours.
enna, the idiot, didn’t think too hard about it and headed upstairs.
Before closing her door, she mentioned to Dad:
Tomorrow’s Mom’s death anniversary,”
In her room, she pulled out a Polaroid of us together.
Two little girls grinning in the photo.
Looking at that Polaroid, I was genuinely shocked.
I thought Senna would’ve torn it up ages ago.
When we took this photo, I had no idea my mom was Senna’s dad’s mistress.
Back then I was so grateful that Sonn
I stuck this photo on my desk like a lucky charm.
Nobody wanted to mess with Senna.
So when people saw that photo, they’d unconsciously tone down their cruelty toward me.
When I got home, I happily showed the photo to my mom.
Yet that photo was what doomed both Senna and me-
My mom, Ruby Martinelli, was young and beautiful.
She always said calling her “Mom” made her feel old, so she made me call her “Ms. Ruby.”
She’d take me frog catching in the marshes upstate and would totally go off on other parents for my sake.
I loved her so much.
But maybe it was because I secretly called her “Mom” in my heart, she aged really fast.
Still, Ms. Ruby was obsessed with education. She’d always say things like, “If I’d gone to college, then I would’ve…”
ittle me used to think she was just talking big.
f Ms. Ruby really had been valedictorian of her whole high school, how did she end up so broke?
o broke that she’d stare at discounted winter gloves at Target forever, until the cashier got impatient, and she’d convince herself to just tough it out until sprin with her red, swollen hands.
ears later, it hit me:
was Ms. Ruby’s greatest misfortune.
Is. Ruby’s spring ended when she was 18. After that, only winter kept her company.
While I was being bullied at school for developing early, Ms. Ruby was suffering through illness.
o, that’s why the day after she saw that Polaroid, she confessed everything to Mrs. Rivers.
Irs. Rivers was a kind woman.
he brought me into the Rivers house, made sure I was fed and clothed, and used the family’s influence to deal with the people who were openly bullying me.
ut on my first day of living the good life, Ms. Ruby overdosed on sleeping pills.
Is. Ruby had cancer. Untreatable.
he traded her terminal diagnosis for my ticket into the Rivers family.
hose sleeping pills were the most expensive meal 34-year-old Ms. Ruby ever had.
n her suicide note, she told me to live well, not to become a mistress like her, and that she’d watch over me from heaven.
The only thing she left me was a savings account with $3,682.34.
Ms. Ruby had taken care of everyone except herself.
The memories wrapped around me.
Even though I was a ghost, I felt like I couldn’t breathe from the pain.
Is it because I didn’t listen to Ms. Ruby?
Is that why I don’t even qualify to enter reincarnation and see her?
I can only drift around Senna as a spirit.
Ghosts don’t dream.
So I haven’t seen Ms. Ruby in two years.
Senna raised her hand to tear up the Polaroid, but in the end, she put it away in the bottom shelf of her bookcase, eyes red with tears.
The day I lost my mother, Senna lost her father too.
After being exposed, our Dad started openly keeping mistresses.
Back then, I was twisted by hatred.
Because the Rivers family had taken away my only mother.
So I channeled all my hate toward Senna.
I started obviously and subtly stealing Senna’s things-jewelry, admirers.
Everything she had. I wanted to take.
Intil a year later on the same date, Senna lost her mother too.
enna should hate me, but she kept saving me, over and over again.
