I Moved 1,500 Miles Away, Now You Can Favor Her Openly Chapter 02

For a moment, nobody said a word.

Ethan sighed and looked at me as if I were a child who didn’t know any better.

“Hannah, Chloe meant well.”

Diane frowned too.

“Honey, Mom knows you’ve been through a lot. But Chloe saved up for a long time to buy this. Can’t you have one bite? Don’t make things so tense at home, okay?”

Mason was even harsher. He lowered his voice and laid into me.

“The whole family spent all day getting you out of the hospital. Do you have to throw it all back in our faces?”

I set down my fork and spoke calmly.

“I’m severely allergic to citrus.”

Ethan’s frown deepened.

“Hannah, if you’re still mad, say so. You don’t have to make up some extreme excuse.”

Diane looked away in disgust. “You’d lie about something like that to set Chloe up? When did you get so petty and vicious?”

They didn’t believe me.

In ten years, all they had remembered was that orange mousse was Chloe’s favorite.

They had never brought any home, and I had believed it was because they remembered my allergy. In reality, it was only part of their act of freezing Chloe out.

Every face at that table was certain.

I didn’t argue again. I picked up my fork, scooped up a bite of cake, and put it in my mouth.

I swallowed it.

It didn’t matter. I would let the facts speak for themselves.

In less than a minute, my throat started to tighten, and red welts broke out across my arms.

Diane shot to her feet.

Her first instinct wasn’t to call 911. She yanked Chloe behind her instead.

“Hannah, are you done putting on a show?”

Ethan paled and handed me a glass of lemonade. “Stop it. Hurry, wash it down!”

I took a sip, and the swelling in my throat got worse at once.

That was when I realized it was the lemonade Chloe had poured a minute earlier.

Lemons and oranges were both citrus, and either one would set off my allergy.

It struck me as bitterly ironic. Ethan always said he loved me.

Yet when my life was on the line, he had handed me the wrong drink.

I shoved Ethan’s hand away and stumbled to the medicine cabinet in the living room.

I took an allergy pill.

The wall was cold against my back as I gasped for air.

Ethan stood frozen, still holding that glass of lemonade.

I looked at my family’s pale faces.

They were shielding Chloe, and no one came to help me.

The last bit of warmth in my heart went out completely.

“Now do you remember? I’m allergic to citrus.”

I had ten days left before I moved away.

Lately, my old hearing aid kept squealing with feedback.

It stabbed at what little hearing I had left until I could hardly stand it.

Ethan had given it to me ten years earlier.

I looked up at Mason. He had once promised to get me the best hearing aid money could buy.

“Mason, I want to get my hearing aid fixed.”

Mason didn’t even look up. He pulled 250 dollars out of his wallet and tossed it on the table.

“Go get it fixed tomorrow. If it costs more, I’ll cover it. If it’s less, bring me the change.”

“Hannah, from now on, this family won’t shortchange you anymore.”

I went to his study to use the computer and look up repair shops nearby.

His computer was still on, and a private cloud drive he hadn’t logged out of was open on the screen.

[Chloe’s Secret Garden]

I clicked on it.

There were thousands of photos and videos, neatly sorted by year.

They showed scuba diving in Coral Key, skiing at Silverpeak, and shopping in Montclaire.

For ten years, they hadn’t missed a single place Chloe wanted to go.

That was what they called freezing her out.

The latest set of photos was from the seventeenth of the month before.

In them, Chloe stood under the northern lights in Nordvik in a designer parka, laughing without a care in the world.

Gregory had his arm around her, and Diane was pulling a hat onto her head.

Ethan stood beside her, blocking the wind.

Mason held the camera, beaming at her with pure adoration.

I stared at the date, and it felt as if something had punched a hole straight through my chest.