The dining room was too bright. Every surface gleamed under the chandelier like a stage set—Sylas at the head of the table, carving a roast with the precision of a surgeon; Ayden beside him, shoulders hunched in that practiced slump of wounded adolescence; and me, at the opposite end, where the light hit the crystal and fractured it into tiny rainbows. Two weeks had passed since the hospital. Two weeks since I'd stopped bleeding. Two weeks since I'd written those three words in my diary and started planning in the dark.
I watched Ayden's fork move around his plate, pushing food into small, meaningless patterns. He'd been doing it for ten minutes. The pattern changed when he spoke.
'And then Mr. Jennings said I was disrupting the whole class,' he was saying to Sylas, his voice pitched just high enough to carry the right note of injustice. 'Just because I asked a simple question about the assignment. He's always picking on me. Always. It's like he's got it out for me.'
Sylas made a sympathetic sound—that low, distracted hum he used when he was dividing his attention between his son and the quarterly reports on his phone. I set down my water glass and looked at Ayden's fork, still making those nervous loops on his plate.
'That's not what happened,' I said quietly.
The fork stopped.
I met Ayden's eyes across the table. 'Mrs. Peterson called this afternoon. She said you stood up in the middle of Mr. Jennings' lecture and accused him of sleeping with a parent. In front of the entire class. You were suspended for three days, not sent home early. She wanted to make sure we knew, since you told us you had a stomachache.'
The silence stretched like a wire pulled tight. I could hear the grandfather clock in the hall ticking. Somewhere in the kitchen, a dish towel fell.
'Dad—' Ayden's voice cracked, but not in the practiced way. This crack was real, sharp with panic. 'She's lying. She's always—'
'Your teacher left a voicemail,' I continued, my voice steady. 'She said this is the third time this month you've disrupted class with false accusations. She's concerned about your mental health. She suggested we consider therapy.'
Ayden's face went white, then flushed red, then white again. He looked at Sylas, who had finally set down his phone and was staring at me with something that might have been surprise.
'I didn't—' Ayden started, but I was already standing, already walking toward the kitchen with my empty water glass. Behind me, I heard his chair scrape against the floor.
'Dad, she's making this up! She's trying to get rid of me! She's always—'
I heard the crash before I registered what it was. Glass breaking. Something liquid hitting the floor. Then a searing, chemical burn across my left forearm, and I was gasping, stumbling back from the kitchen counter where I'd been about to fill my glass.
The pain came in waves—first cold, then hot, then a white-hot agony that made my vision blur. I looked down at my arm. My sweater sleeve was eaten away in places, and underneath, my skin was already turning an angry red. The smell hit me next: sharp, acrid, like bleach mixed with something far worse. It was burning through the flesh.
'What did you do?' My voice sounded distant, like it was coming from somewhere else. 'Ayden, what did you—'
He stood frozen by the counter, an empty glass beaker in his hand. His eyes were huge, vacant with shock. Behind him, Sylas was rising from his chair, moving toward us with the careful control of a man who did not want to make things worse.
I grabbed a dish towel from the counter and pressed it to my arm. The fabric hissed where the chemical soaked through. I walked, carefully, to the sink and turned on the cold water, holding my arm under the stream. The relief was immediate but incomplete. The burn was deep.
'What happened?' Sylas asked. He was looking at Ayden's white face, not at my arm.
'She—she was lying!' Ayden's voice was shaking. 'She was trying to get me in trouble! I just—I didn't mean—'
'He threw cleaning solution at me,' I said, my arm still under the water. 'The industrial kind from under the sink. The kind with the warning label. The kind we keep locked up because it can cause permanent damage. He threw it at me, Sylas. He aimed.'
Sylas's jaw tightened. He was still looking at Ayden, who had started to cry—real tears this time, the kind that came when you realized you'd gone too far.
'For God's sake, Olive,' Sylas said finally. 'Can you hear yourself? He's a child. He's upset. You need to stop escalating these situations. He didn't mean—'
'He meant it.' My voice cut through his like a blade. 'He knew exactly what he was doing. He's been doing exactly what he's been taught to do. And you're still defending him. You're still choosing—'
'Don't.' Sylas's voice was sharp now. 'Don't make this about—just... take care of your arm. We'll talk about this later. Ayden, go to your room. Now.'
I turned off the water and looked down at my arm. The burn was already blistering. In the reflection of the stainless steel sink, I could see Sylas's face—tight, controlled, angry at me. Always angry at me.
I picked up my phone from the counter and walked past him toward the front door.
'Where are you going?' he asked.
'To the hospital,' I said. 'Since no one in this house seems capable of calling an ambulance.'
The door closed behind me with a soft, final click.
