1 Just as I was leaving with the last of my antidepressants, the final prescription of a long and grueling treatment, I ran into my biological parents. They were at the hospital to give a lecture. Five years. We hadn't seen each other in five years, yet he recognized me in an instant. His voice was laced with disbelief. "Your... condition. It's still not better?" I said nothing, just kept walking toward my ward. "How did you let yourself become like this?" my father asked, his voice thick with a pain that felt a decade too late. His eyes were already turning red. "Elara, your mother and sister miss you terribly. Come home with me." His words stopped me in my tracks. I slowly pulled up the sleeve of my shirt, the long sleeve I wore year-round, regardless of the heat. "That's their home," I said, my voice flat. "I have nothing to do with you anymore." Hundreds of scars, deep and jagged, crisscrossed the pale skin of my arms. A roadmap of my pain, etched from wrist to elbow. Countless nights in the ER, countless battles fought in the dark had long ago eroded any love or hate I had left for them. Now, finally, I was on the verge of breaking free from the illness that had defined me. I had a new family. All I wanted was to live the rest of my life in peace. ... My father abandoned the flock of stunned medical interns and hurried after me. "The psychiatric hospital said you vanished after being rushed to the ER for emergency surgery. Elara, where have you been all these years?" His voice was a strained whisper. "They said you stabbed yourself in the abdomen. Why would you do that? Why would you hurt yourself so badly?" His eyes were bloodshot as he reached for my arm. The moment his fingers brushed against the strange, uneven texture of my skin, he recoiled as if he’d been shocked. His questions stirred nothing in me. Not a ripple. I just quickened my pace, desperate to put space between us. "This is a public place," I said, my tone as calm as if I were addressing a stranger. "If you don't want anyone to connect a 'crazy person' like me with the world-renowned Dr. Ashford, I suggest you stop following me." Perhaps he was too used to the world's admiration. My coldness seemed to stun him into silence. "Elara," he finally managed, his voice cracking, "are you still angry with us...?" As a child, I was his shadow. Ten minutes without him and I'd burst into tears. After my depression hit, I became even more dependent, a prisoner in my own home, unwilling to see anyone. My parents were the only living things I could bear to be around. Just then, a few doctors spotted him and swarmed over, blocking my path. I was trapped. "Congratulations, Professor Ashford! Another prestigious award for you and your wife in the field of psychology. Truly pioneers!" "And we heard your daughter won yet another prize for one of her early paintings! You must be so proud to have such a genius in the family." My father’s eyes darted toward me, a flash of guilt and embarrassment in his fleeting glance. He forced a weak smile. "Yes... she's always been a hard worker," he mumbled, trying to steer the conversation away. But they were oblivious. "Speaking of which, isn't her wedding to the Sterling heir next month? Any chance we might get an invitation to the grand event?" A tremor went through me. The award. The fiancé. I glanced down at myself—a faded, pilled t-shirt and worn-out jeans that, if you got close enough, probably smelled faintly of the butcher shop. Those things had nothing to do with me anymore. They belonged to another world. I saw a gap in the crowd and made a break for it. "Elara!" My father pushed past the surprised doctors and chased after me. "I know you blame us, but we had no choice back then... Your sister doesn't blame you anymore. Please, just come home," he pleaded, his eyes swimming with a shallow guilt. My fingers traced the raised, mottled scars on my arm. Each one a souvenir from a trip to hell and back. 'No choice.' 'Doesn't blame me.' What a fucking joke. I finally reached the ward door. I took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to expel the tightness in my chest. Slam. I stepped inside and threw the lock. My friend, a fellow warrior who had battled depression alongside me these past few years, was staring out the small window in the door, her jaw slack. "Oh my god, isn't that Professor Ashford? Elara, since when do you know a celebrity doctor?" She hopped off her bed, ready to unlock the door. "Let him in! If you'd known him earlier, maybe you would've recovered years ago." As she passed, I grabbed her hand, my knuckles turning white. "Don't open it." Her face filled with confusion. If I had never known them, I never would have been sick in the first place. She wouldn't let it go, so for the first time, I told her my story. The Ashfords had two daughters, twin girls. Me, and my sister, Clara. But when we were ten, we were kidnapped. She was killed by her captors. From that day on, a severe depression took root in my soul. I locked myself in my room, terrified of the outside world, terrified of people. My only escape was painting. Only in my art could I dare to express the storm of emotions raging inside me. Having lost one daughter, my parents were desperate not to lose another. They made a radical decision, abandoning their promising careers in clinical medicine to specialize in psychology. To protect my fragile state, our house fell silent, as if someone had hit the mute button on our lives. They tiptoed around me, treating me like a dying animal, terrified of causing the slightest distress. Until the day they found a girl during one of our trips to my therapist. She was small and dirty, huddled into a ball. But her eyes, her face... she looked so much like my sister. My mother held her, her hands trembling. "Elara," she whispered, "she looks... she looks like Clara. Can we... can we take her home?" Seeing the tears welling in my mother's eyes, how could I say no? Once she was cleaned up and dressed in fresh clothes, it was uncanny. It was like Clara had stepped right out of a photograph. A sob broke from my mother's lips. She pulled the girl into a crushing embrace. "Clara is back! Mommy finally found you!" She named the girl Caroline. I stood in the doorway, watching them cling to each other, their tears mingling. From that day forward, all the love that could no longer be given to my dead sister was poured onto Caroline. The silence in our home was replaced by laughter. Their laughter. And I retreated further into my room, sealing myself off completely. Then one day, Caroline snuck into my studio and scribbled all over my latest painting. My breath hitched, ragged and fast. A scream tore from my throat as my body began to convulse. When my parents rushed in, they found me curled on the floor, unable to breathe. "Elara, don't scare me! Caroline! Didn't I tell you not to come in here? Why did you disobey me!" my mother shrieked, holding me tight. "Honey, get her medication! Quickly!" My father was about to bolt from the room. But Caroline, with wide, innocent eyes, tilted her head. "Does she really have depression? Because... I saw her pouring her pills down the toilet late at night." She paused, then added another, more devastating blow. "Oh, and I heard her saying that as long as she pretends to be depressed, Mommy and Daddy will never blame her for getting her sister killed. What does that mean?" In an instant, the way my parents looked at me changed. The warmth vanished, replaced by an icy cold. The next thing I knew, my mother’s eyes were bloodshot with fury. She ripped through my studio like a hurricane. The paintings I had poured countless nights of pain and sorrow into were torn from the walls, ripped to shreds like garbage. I scrambled to save them, but my mother's hand flew out, a sharp slap across my face that sent me stumbling back into a shattered canvas. Splinters of wood dug deep into my shoulder. "All these years," she hissed, her voice a raw wound, "I have suppressed my own grief, terrified of losing another daughter. But it was you. You were the one who killed my Clara! You monster!" She collapsed, weeping. "Clara, my baby, I'm so sorry!" My father just stood there, his face a mask of profound disappointment. Blood was streaming down my arm, but I couldn't feel it. My eyes were vacant as I fell to my knees, gathering the torn scraps of paper into my arms. In the doorway, my mother was clutching Caroline as if she'd found something she'd lost to death itself. "I knew it," she sobbed. "I knew Clara came back to me. You even exposed Elara's lies. Mommy will never lose you again. I will never let anyone hurt you, ever!" After Caroline's "revelation," my mother was convinced my depression was a lie. She began a cruel campaign to force me to admit I was "normal." She dragged me from my room, ignoring my struggles and pleas. "Stop faking it! Caroline saw you sneaking out to play! Now you're going to walk home on your own!" She shoved me into the middle of a bustling intersection. Every brush from a stranger sent a jolt of terror through me, making me scream. Horns blared. A car screeched to a halt inches from me. "Are you trying to get killed?! Go do it somewhere else!" the driver yelled, his face purple with rage. I was a tiny boat, sinking in a vast, merciless ocean, utterly alone. My depression spiraled. I stopped sleeping, spending my nights hidden under my covers, drawing and drawing until my fingers bled. Then, a world-renowned art competition was announced. It felt like a lifeline. If I won, I could get a full scholarship to study abroad for six years. I could finally escape. My friend beside me smacked her forehead, pulling me from the memory. "I remember that competition! Someone cheated, right? The internet went crazy. I think some people even found the cheater and... broke her hand!" I took a deep breath, my right hand still trembling slightly after all these years. "That person... was me." "No way!" she gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. The night before the competition, my mother did something she hadn't done in years. She brought me a glass of warm milk. "Always making trouble for others," she muttered, not looking at me as she closed my window against the wind. "You want milk, but you won't even leave your room to get it." She paused at the door. "Painting has been your dream since you were a little girl. Don't embarrass me tomorrow." For a fleeting moment, a pang of guilt hit me. She had no idea that the moment my dream came true would also be the moment I escaped her forever. The next day, the judges hailed me as a prodigy. Prestigious universities from the US and UK made on-the-spot offers. But as they were about to hand me the grand prize, my mother stormed the stage and snatched the trophy from my hands. "This painting isn't by Elara Ashford! It was painted by my daughter, Caroline!" I froze. Every artist has a unique style. How could I have stolen someone else's work? Just then, Caroline walked onto the stage, her eyes red and teary. "Sister, this competition was my dream. Why did you lock me in my room and steal my painting to enter?" she sobbed. "And didn't you know? All of my paintings have a personal signature in the bottom right corner." She pointed to the darkest patch of color on the canvas. My eyes followed her finger. There it was. A tiny, almost invisible "Caroline." The world tilted on its axis. How? Then, a memory exploded in my mind. The glass of milk. After I drank it last night, I’d been so drowsy I could barely keep my eyes open. I’d thought it was just exhaustion from painting.
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