After my stepfather injured my twin sister and me, he brought us to the hospital. My mother calmly told the doctor, “They just fell down the stairs.” My stepfather smiled, thinking he had won. But as the nurse checked my vitals, I slipped a handwritten note into her pocket, and…

to a brilliant, unseasonably warm spring sunlight that felt like a blessing against my skin. We had turned eighteen. We were officially in control of our father’s trust, legally emancipated from the ghosts of our past. We lived in a sprawling, light-filled loft with Uncle Julian in the city, and we were both enrolled as freshmen at the university.

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