Chapter 2

I woke to the sound of laughter.

It was Ethan, Lydia, and Jessica.

"Those Christmas decorations were beautiful tonight! Especially the one shaped like a smiley face. It was just as cute as our Jessica!"

There was a tenderness in Lydia's voice I'd never heard before.

I floated in midair as the front door opened.

Now that I was a ghost, I still instinctively drifted toward them to welcome them home.

I wanted to bring them their slippers, just like I always had.

The need to please them had been carved into my bones.

"Lydia."

I opened my arms, wanting to hug the woman who had just come in from the cold.

"It doesn't hurt anymore. I'll be good from now on. Please don't be mad."

But my hands passed straight through her body like wind slipping through empty space.

Lydia shivered and frowned.

"Why is it so cold in here? Isn't the heat on?"

I froze and stared at my transparent hands.

Right.

I was already dead.

Dead people couldn't hug the living.

"Go check on Evelyn," Ethan said casually. "She didn't come out for dinner either."

So maybe they did love me.

Just a tiny bit.

I looked at Lydia expectantly.

If she found out I was dead, would she be sad?

Would she regret it?

Lydia snorted, changed into her slippers, and walked toward my room.

She shoved my bedroom door open.

She didn't turn on the light.

Using only the light from the living room, she saw "me" slumped over the desk.

Motionless.

Like I was asleep.

"Oh, you're still lying there?"

Lydia stood in the doorway, her voice dripping with mockery.

"You think if you slump over the desk and act pathetic, I'll carry you to bed?"

"Evelyn, you're seven years old, not three!"

I floated beside my body and screamed.

"Lydia! I'm not pretending to sleep! I'm dead! Look at me!"

"Touch me! My body's cold!"

But Lydia couldn't hear me.

She only believed what she thought she could see.

Jessica squeezed into the room too and raised her wrist proudly.

"Evelyn's a bad kid! Look, mine is green and Evelyn's is still red!"

"Evelyn keeps lying! She even lies in her sleep!"

Lydia stroked Jessica's hair.

"That's because our Jessica is a good girl. Don't worry about Evelyn. Let's go to your room and I'll read you a story."

Ethan peered in from behind her.

"Shouldn't we put her in bed? It's cold. She could get sick."

Lydia cut him off.

"Don't touch her! Kids have it too easy these days. That's why they're so dramatic."

"The parenting expert said that when children behave like this, you have to give them the cold shoulder. She needs to realize what she did wrong on her own."

"Look at that red light. It means she's still fighting us mentally. She hasn't reflected on anything."

Lydia turned around and closed the door again.

I floated beside my body, staring at that tiny red light in the darkness.

The sadness inside me felt heavier than death itself.

Lydia, if you'd taken one more step...

If you'd just touched my hand...

You would've known I was already dead.

But you didn't.

You trusted a cold machine more than the daughter you gave birth to.

Late that night, a mouse crawled out of my empty cabinet.

I'd always been terrified of mice.

Whenever I saw one, I used to scream.

But now, I could only float near the ceiling and watch it crawl freely over my body.

"Go away..."

I tried weakly to chase it off, but no sound came out.

The mouse bit through one of my toes.

A little dark, purplish blood seeped out.

I couldn't feel it anymore.

That was nice.

Nothing hurt anymore.

I looked down at that poor little body and whispered, "Don't be scared."

"You can't feel pain anymore anyway."

"It'll all be over soon."