The day my little sister got married, she looked me in the eye and asked me to hide.

The drive away from the church was conducted in a silence so thick it felt physical.

We were in Margaret’s vintage Bentley, moving through the moss-draped avenues of Charleston. Daniel drove, his knuckles white against the leather-wrapped steering wheel, his jaw set in a rigid line. Margaret sat in the front passenger seat, looking out the window as the historic homes slipped by. I sat in the back, my wheelchair folded in the trunk, holding my single unadorned glove in my lap like a relic from a battle I hadn't chosen to fight.

My phone in my clutch purse buzzed incessantly. A frantic, rhythmic hum that never paused for more than three seconds. Linda. Mark. Emily. Linda. Mark. Emily. Text messages flooded the screen, visible even without opening them:

*Pick up your phone right now.*

*You have destroyed your sister’s life.*

*Fix this, Clara. Fix this before Margaret cancels the reception deposits.*

*How could you be so selfish?*

Selfish.

The word carved into me with the dull familiarity of an old ache. I had spent fifteen years being told I was selfish whenever my physical reality inconvenienced my family. When my skin grafts required twice-daily cleanings that made the house smell like medicated ointments, I had been selfish for not hiding in the basement. When my physical therapy sessions conflicted with Emily’s cheerleading competitions, I had been selfish for demanding our mother’s car.

I closed my eyes, a single tear escaping down my left cheek—the unburned side, where the skin was still soft and fair.

“Turn it off, Clara,” Margaret said from the front seat. Her voice was calm, devoid of the theatrical distress my mother would have displayed in such a moment.

“I’m sorry,” I choked out, my voice cracking. “Mrs. Callahan, I am so sorry. I should have just rolled to the back. If I had just moved, the ceremony would have finished. Daniel would be married. Your family wouldn't have this scandal—”

The car pulled sharply to the curb under the shade of a massive live oak near the Battery. Daniel shifted the car into park and cut the engine.

He turned completely around in his seat, his eyes blazing with a mixture of grief and fierce protectiveness.

“Don’t you dare apologize, Clara,” he said, his voice raw. “Do you think I wanted to marry a monster? Do you think I would have been happy living forty years with a woman who looks at the greatest act of love in her life and sees an inconvenience for her Instagram aesthetic?”

“She’s your fiancée, Daniel,” I whispered. “You loved her.”

“I loved an illusion,” he replied, shaking his head slowly. “I loved a girl who smiled at charity galas and laughed at my bad jokes and pretended she had a deep, tender heart. But today, the veil came off before she even made it to the altar. If you had moved to the back, I would have made vows to a stranger. You didn't ruin my life today, Clara. You saved it. Just like you saved hers.”

Margaret turned as well, reaching back to place her hand over my scarred fingers again.

“My husband, Thomas, died in an industrial accident twelve years ago, Clara,” Margaret said softly, her silver eyes holding mine. “He went back into a collapsing crane rig to pull out a twenty-year-old apprentice. He didn't make it out. I spent three months in a hospital waiting room watching him die from crush injuries. Do you know what I learned during those months?”

I shook my head, my breath catching.

“I learned that the world is filled with people who consume the sacrifices of others without ever understanding the cost,” Margaret said. “Emily consumed your youth, your body, and your health. And your parents allowed her to swallow it whole. I watched them in the months leading up to this wedding, Clara. I saw how they treated you like a ghost they wished would stop haunting their perfect house. I stayed quiet because I thought Daniel loved her, and because I thought—foolishly—that Emily might show some reverence for you today.”

Margaret’s lips thinned into a resolute line. “When she whispered those words to you, she didn't just insult you. She desecrated the memory of every person who has ever laid down their flesh for someone else. We are going to my house on Sullivan's Island. And you are going to stay with us until the dust settles.”

“I can't,” I protested faintly. “My parents—”