Chapter 1: Riverside Drive
After our car accident, I was still trapped inside when my dad shouted at the paramedics to save my sister first. Then he pointed at me and said, “The other one never meant much anyway. Don’t waste time on her.” I was still conscious, and I heard every word.
After our car accident, my father told the paramedics, “Save my daughter first — the other one never meant much anyway. Don’t waste time on her!”
I heard every word.
I was trapped inside the passenger side of my father’s black Lincoln, my left leg pinned beneath the damaged door while firefighters worked to reach me. Smoke drifted through the air as emergency lights flashed red and blue across Riverside Drive, turning the night into a blur of color and sirens.
My younger sister, Olivia, sat several feet away wrapped in a silver emergency blanket, crying for Dad. She had a cut across her forehead and a broken wrist. I could see her moving. I could hear her sobbing.
I could not feel my feet.
“Sir, step back,” one paramedic snapped.
“My Olivia first!” Dad shouted. His voice cracked, but not from worry about me. “She’s all I have. Grace is—” He stopped, then said it anyway. “Grace is not important.”
The firefighter closest to me paused for a moment. His eyes met mine through the haze.
I wanted to tell him I mattered.
I wanted to tell my father that I had packed Olivia’s lunch every school morning since Mom passed away, that I had worked double shifts at the diner to help pay the bills he forgot, that I had turned down Boston University for community college because he said the family needed me.
But I could barely speak.
Everything had changed only minutes earlier.
Dad had picked us up from Aunt Meredith’s house. Olivia wanted to stop for coffee. Dad refused. I noticed a strange smell inside the car, but when I mentioned it, Dad told me to stop being dramatic.
Moments later, the engine sputtered.
Then everything went dark.
A paramedic knelt beside me.
“Grace, can you hear me?”
I blinked once.
“We’re getting you out.”
Behind him, Dad held Olivia’s hand and kissed her knuckles.
“You’re safe, sweetheart. I’m here.”
Olivia looked past him toward me.
For one brief moment, her expression changed.
Not fear.
Not sadness.
Guilt.
That was when I remembered what she had whispered before Dad started the car.
“Grace, don’t be mad. I only told him because I thought he already knew.”
Told him what?
The answer slowly came back to me.
The bank envelope in my backpack.
The acceptance letter.
The apartment deposit.
My plan to leave them both.
The firefighters finally pulled me free.
Dad never looked in my direction.
May you like
I stopped being his unwanted daughter that night.
I became his witness.
