On my 18th birthday, 8 years after my brother supposedly died because of me, a stranger followed me from his memorial through a freezing Seattle rain—and when I begged my mother to save me, she told me she wished I had died instead.
Chapter 2
After his shift, my father finally checked his phone.
For one foolish second, I hoped he would see my SOS messages and realize something was wrong. Instead, he called my mother and complained that I was trying to manipulate them again.
“She says somebody followed her from the memorial.”
My mother sighed. “She called me with the same nonsense.”
“Keep the doors locked tonight. Vance thinks the old Ripper case may be connected.”
“What about Lyra?”
My father paused.
“Let her stay away a few days. Maybe she’ll finally learn.”
Neither asked where I was sleeping.
Neither called again.
I followed my father home because, for reasons I could not understand, death had tied me to him.
At the dinner table, my mother had prepared Logan’s favorite foods. Crab legs. Shrimp. Lobster tails dripping in garlic butter. Every year she cooked as if my dead brother might walk in hungry.
I was severely allergic to shellfish.
They had forgotten that long before they forgot how to love me.
When I was thirteen, my mother once forced me to eat crab because refusing her cooking was, in her words, “another attention-seeking performance.” My throat began closing within an hour.
I pounded on my bedroom door.
They had locked it from the outside.
Through the wall, I heard my mother tell my father I was exaggerating.
Then they left for the mall.
I survived only because I climbed onto the windowsill and threw myself from the third floor. A neighbor found me on the sidewalk and called 911. The emergency-room doctor said another five minutes without treatment might have killed me.
When my parents arrived, I thought they had come because they loved me.
My mother grabbed my hospital gown.
“You did this deliberately.”
“Mom, I couldn’t breathe.”
“You jumped out that window so people would think we abuse you.”
She struck me while a nurse shouted for security.
My father stood against the wall and watched.
Afterward, the hospital filed a report. My father’s reputation and connections helped bury it as a family incident that required no further action.
That was the year I stopped coming home whenever I could avoid it.
I applied for student housing through every program available. I lived on cafeteria soup, discount bread, and scholarships. I wore one coat through three winters and studied until my eyes blurred because some childish part of me still believed excellence could earn back what grief had taken.
When I brought home outstanding grades, my mother accused me of cheating.
When my teacher called to confirm them, she said, “Logan would have done better.”
So I studied harder.
My SAT scores were due the morning after my eighteenth birthday.
I never got to see them.
Two days after my murder, my best friend Piper Bennett walked into the police station and demanded to file a missing-person report.
Piper had been my shelter for years. She shared lunches when I was hungry, covered me with her jacket when I cried, and once chased three boys down a school hallway with a janitor’s mop because they were mocking me.
She came into the station with swollen eyes.
“My friend Lyra Miller is missing.”
My father happened to be crossing the lobby.
He stopped.
“She isn’t missing.”
Piper turned. “Dr. Miller, she hasn’t answered anybody in two days.”
“She’s being punished.”
“She sent me a message saying someone was following her.”
My father’s expression hardened. “Lyra has been making up stories for years.”
Piper looked at the police officer behind the desk.
“Please.”
But my father was Dr. Arthur Miller. He was trusted.
Piper was an eighteen-year-old girl with wet hair, thrift-store sneakers, and panic in her voice.
The report went nowhere.
I tried to follow her when she left, but an invisible pull dragged me back toward my father.
That evening, my parents sat before Logan’s empty place at the dinner table.
Then someone knocked.
My mother froze.
A man’s voice came through the door.
“Mom? Dad?”
My father’s glass slipped from his hand and shattered.
The voice came again.
“It’s me.”
My mother screamed.
She reached the door first.
Standing beneath the porch light was a tall man in a soaked coat, older than the photographs covering our walls but unmistakable.
Logan.
My dead brother.
Alive.
My mother collapsed into his arms.
My father touched his face, his shoulders, his hands, as if performing an examination.
“My son.”
Logan started crying.
“I’m sorry.”
Behind him stood a nervous woman holding a suitcase.
“This is Elena,” Logan said. “My wife.”
The room went silent.
My father finally asked the question that mattered.
“How?”
Logan lowered his eyes.
“I wasn’t on the plane.”
My mother stopped breathing.
“I checked in,” he continued. “But I never boarded. Elena and I were going to run away together. I knew you’d try to stop us. After the crash, everyone thought I was aboard, and…”
“And you let us believe it?” my father whispered.
“I was scared. Then too much time passed.”
Eight years.
Eight years of kneeling in dirt.
Eight years of being called a murderer.
Eight years of wondering why God had taken the wrong child.
Logan looked around.
“Where’s Lyra?”
My parents exchanged a glance.
His face changed.
“What?”
My mother wiped her tears. “She’s been impossible ever since you died.”
“I didn’t die.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No.” Logan stepped back. “What did you do to her?”
The doorbell rang.
Piper stood outside drenched in rain, clutching my school ID and a folder.
“Lyra is missing,” she said.
Then she saw Logan.
Her mouth fell open.
“Oh, my God.”
My father pushed forward. “We already discussed this.”
Piper stared at him.
“No. You dismissed me.”
“Watch your tone.”
“I’ve watched my tone for eight years while you people destroyed her.”
My mother snapped, “You have no idea what our family has been through.”
Piper’s voice shook.
“I know Lyra ate cafeteria bread because you stopped supporting her. I know she slept in a sixteen-person dorm because she was afraid to go home. I know she almost died from shellfish because you locked her in a room during an allergic reaction.”
Logan slowly turned toward our parents.
Neither denied it.
Piper began crying.
“She studied until her hands cramped because she thought if she became as smart as Logan, maybe you’d love her again.”
My father flinched.
“She texted you two nights ago,” Piper said. “Somebody was following her.”
My father’s phone rang.
Captain Vance.
He answered.
Vance did not bother with hello.
“Arthur, get to the station.”
“What happened?”
“The lamb charm.”
My father went pale.
“Lots of children have those.”
“Lots of fathers don’t build stun devices inside them.”
The silence became enormous.
My father’s hand began to shake.
And for the first time since my body arrived at his morgue, he remembered.
