I stood rooted to the spot. Every ounce of grief inside me curdled into a single bitter smile.
Max and I were the products of our father's drunken indiscretions.
Our mother had fought tooth and nail to keep us alive. It was only years later that the Fox family finally took us in.
The first year after we returned to the family, Max and I were kidnapped on the way home from school by people with a grudge against the Foxes. They locked us in a pitch-black shack in the mountains.
The kidnappers pressed guns to our foreheads and told the family to pay the ransom and pick one child to take home.
The family chose Max.
I was shaking so hard I couldn't stand. Max pulled me into his arms and held on like his life depended on it.
"I'll stay. Let my sister go."
His voice trembled, but he said every word with absolute certainty.
He defied the family's decision without a second's hesitation. He chose me.
I believed that kind of bond, forged in the shadow of death, was unbreakable.
Then Mabel and her mother walked through our door, and everything changed.
On Max's birthday, I baked him a cake with my own hands.
We blew out the candles together. I cut the first slice, and we shared it.