The Words That Killed Me

I don't understand the words people say in anger. When I was seven, my foster mother complained that I ate too much and told me that if I didn't work, I wouldn't get to eat. I washed dishes for three days with a high fever. Only after I collapsed did I dare take half a moldy dinner roll. When I was twelve, my teacher told me I couldn't go home until I'd memorized the entire passage. The next morning, when the security guard forced open the classroom door, I was still standing in front of the empty desks, reciting the final paragraph. When I was sixteen, a doctor got angry when I refused treatment and snapped that if I didn't want to live, I should never take medicine again. From then on, I never touched another pill. They all said they'd only spoken out of anger. But if they didn't want me to do what they said, why say it at all? When I was twenty, the Fosters found me. The first thing my biological parents taught me was never to take anything that belonged to Gemma Foster, the daughter they'd raised in my place. So I gave her the sunny bedroom, agreed to keep my identity private, and even handed over the engagement that had originally been arranged for me. I thought if I was obedient enough, they'd let me stay. But on the night of Gemma's birthday, she left behind a suicide note and disappeared. The last time she appeared on security footage, she was outside my bedroom door. Mom slapped me. Dad demanded that I tell them where she was. My brother, Nolan, threw the car keys at me. "If Gemma doesn't come back, don't you ever come back either!" Half an hour later, Gemma sent me a location pin by the sea. She said I had to come alone, or she'd jump from the lighthouse. I didn't tell anyone. If I found her, I'd bring her home. If I couldn't, I wouldn't go back. Either way, they'd be satisfied. At eleven that night, she suddenly unsent the location she'd sent me. But by then, I was already standing beneath the abandoned lighthouse that would be submerged at high tide. Chapter 1 Only a narrow stretch of the stone causeway connecting the lighthouse to shore remained above water. Waves slammed against the car door with heavy thuds. By the time I opened the door and stepped out, the seawater was already washing over my ankles. The lighthouse's iron door stood slightly ajar. The crystal heels Gemma Foster had worn that night lay abandoned by the entrance. One heel was broken, and a few drops of blood stained the ground beside them. "Gemma?" I called her name. Only the wind answered. I followed the spiral staircase upward. Her purse was on the second floor. The draft of her suicide note lay on the third floor. Her white shawl from that evening was draped over the railing at the very top. Everything was there, except her. I walked to the railing and looked down. The ocean was black, waves crashing against the rocks below. If she'd really jumped from here, there was no way she could have survived. Suddenly, a phone rang somewhere in the corner. I followed the sound and found a spare phone inside an abandoned wooden crate. The screen was still lit. A message from Gemma remained open on the screen. [I've put everything where you told me to, Nolan. When are you coming to get me?] Nolan had replied: [Wait another ten minutes. Once you're sure she's here, leave through the rear maintenance passage.] The message had been sent an hour ago. I stared at those two lines for a long time. So Gemma hadn't disappeared. They'd only wanted to lure me here. I didn't know why Nolan had helped her, and I no longer wanted to go back and ask. A sudden crash came from outside the lighthouse. A wave surged over the causeway and shoved the car I'd driven out of place. Just then, the spare phone rang. It was my mother, Elaine Foster. I answered, but before I could speak, she let out a long sigh of relief. "Gemma's home safe." Then her voice turned cold. "She just wanted some time alone, but you deliberately took the family car and made such a scene that everyone found out. With all those guests there tonight, were you trying to embarrass her?" I looked at the causeway, now completely submerged beneath the water. "No." "You're still talking back?" My father, Russell Foster, snatched the phone from her. "Gemma just calmed down. She can't handle any more stress. Stay out tonight and think about what you've done. Don't come back and upset her." I answered seriously, "Okay." Footsteps sounded on the other end. A moment later, Nolan's voice came close to the phone. "And don't call home again." I made sure I'd understood him. "No matter what happens, I can't call?" He gave a short, incredulous laugh, as if I'd exasperated him. "That's right. Even if you die out there, don't bother us." The call ended. Rain poured into the lighthouse. The only light on the top floor flickered several times, then went out completely. I silenced the spare phone and put it back in the crate. Downstairs, seawater reached the first step. This time, I didn't think I'd misunderstood. They didn't want me to come home, and they didn't want me to ask for help. Chapter 2 By one in the morning, the tide had reached the lighthouse's second floor. The rusted iron door had been forced open by the waves, and seawater rushed into the stairwell carrying rocks and debris with it. I pushed an abandoned wooden table across the bottom of the stairs. It couldn't stop the water, but for a while, it could temporarily block the debris being swept in by the waves. When I was done, I leaned against the wall and slowly sat down. My chest was starting to hurt again. After I stopped taking medication at sixteen, I'd passed out many times. A teacher at the orphanage, Teresa Bennett, had secretly taken me to get checked out. The doctor said there was something wrong with my heart and that I needed to stay on medication long-term. Otherwise, the next time my condition flared up, I might never wake up. I refused treatment because the doctor before him had told me never to take medicine again. People later told me that the doctor had no right to make that decision for me, but once someone's words got into my head, they became like a nail I couldn't pull out. Unless the person who said them took the words back, I didn't know whether I was allowed to disobey. Lightning split the night sky. In the faint flash, I saw a faded emergency diagram hanging on the wall. Red signal flares were stored on the top floor of the lighthouse. If I fired one, the nearby Coast Guard station would send someone to rescue me. I braced myself against the wall and stood, then started up the stairs. I'd just reached the landing when the entire lighthouse suddenly lurched. A loose metal panel fell from above and slammed into my right leg, and I tumbled down the steps. A sharp edge tore through my skin, and blood quickly soaked through my skirt. Gripping the railing, I tried twice to stand. I couldn't. In the end, I could only drag my injured leg behind me and crawl up one step at a time. The flares were locked inside a glass cabinet on the top floor. Across the door, large red words read: "FOR EMERGENCY USE." I stared at them for a long time. I didn't break the glass. I didn't really want to live anyway. After Grandma Jo died, there was nothing left in this world I cared about. When my biological parents found me, I thought I'd finally have a family again. So whatever they told me to do, I did. Mom told me not to take Gemma's room, so I moved into the damp storage room downstairs. Dad told me not to publicly reveal that I was their biological daughter, so I told reporters I was only a distant relative of the Foster family. Nolan told me Adrian Maxwell only loved Gemma and warned me not to get any ideas. So in front of the Maxwells, I voluntarily called off the engagement that had originally been arranged for me. But no matter how much I gave up, they still didn't like me. Now, Nolan had finally told me outright to die out here. It seemed I didn't have to keep trying so hard to make them like me anymore. A ship's horn suddenly sounded in the distance. At the same time, the lighthouse's old emergency phone began to ring. The shrill sound echoed endlessly through the empty stairwell. I hesitated, then picked up the receiver. A strange man's voice came through the static. "This is South Bay Coast Guard Station. Our monitoring system shows that the abandoned lighthouse is flooding. Is anyone inside?" I opened my mouth. Before I could answer, he continued urgently, "If anyone is trapped, tell us immediately how many people there are and whether anyone is injured. We'll launch a rescue right away." I tightened my grip on the receiver. But Nolan's voice echoed in my ears again. "Don't call home again. Even if you die out there, don't bother us." I didn't know whether answering the Coast Guard counted as asking for help, and I didn't know whether being rescued and going back would mean disobeying his order never to return. So I said nothing. I put the receiver back. The phone rang again almost immediately. Once. Twice. After the third call went unanswered, the emergency system began contacting the registered owner of the vehicle in the restricted coastal area. A connection tone sounded over the wall speaker. A moment later, Nolan's impatient voice came through. "Who is this?" The Coast Guard officer asked, "Mr. Foster, a vehicle registered to the Fosters entered a restricted coastal area. Do you know whether the driver is safe?" "My sister took the car." At the sound of his voice, I instinctively moved closer to the speaker. The officer continued, "Is there any chance she entered the South Bay lighthouse?" Nolan paused. "Maybe." My heart suddenly beat faster. So he knew I was here. The officer immediately said, "Please provide her contact information. We need to determine whether to launch a rescue." "Don't bother." Nolan gave a cold laugh. "She's throwing a tantrum. She drove off on purpose because she wanted attention. She grew up by the ocean. She knows the tides better than anyone. Nothing's going to happen to her." I blinked, confused. I'd never lived by the ocean. My foster mother lived in a small inland town. I didn't even know how to swim. The officer tried to confirm once more, but Nolan cut him off impatiently, "If she's really at the lighthouse, she can come back herself. Don't bother us again over something this minor." The call disconnected, and the speaker fell silent again. After a long time, the ship's horn in the distance faded away too. I sat against the wall and looked down at my blood-soaked skirt. So he knew I might be trapped here, and he'd still refused to let them help me. That must have been an order too. I wrapped my arms around my knees and quietly waited for the water to rise. The flares in the glass cabinet were less than six feet away. All I had to do was break the glass, and I could live. But I didn't move. Chapter 3 By dawn, the storm hadn't weakened at all. Seawater had swallowed the lighthouse's bottom floor, and every time a wave crashed into the structure, clouds of dust shook loose from the walls. I gathered Gemma's things and put them back into her purse: the crystal heels, the shawl, the draft of her suicide note, and the spare phone containing the messages. At the very bottom of the purse was a photo of Gemma with the Fosters. Gemma sat in the middle wearing a crown. Dad was cutting the cake for her. Mom was leaning down to fix her hair. Nolan stood behind her, smiling down at her. The photo had been taken seven days after I returned to the Foster family. That day had been my birthday too. The butler, Conrad O'Connor, told me my parents had something come up and couldn't celebrate with me. I waited in the dining room until late that night, then soaked a bowl of oatmeal in water and ate it by myself. Only later did I find out that Gemma was afraid my birthday would remind her that she wasn't their biological daughter, so the whole family had taken her away to the family estate to cheer her up. Maybe they hadn't deliberately forgotten me. Compared to Gemma being upset, my birthday simply wasn't important. I found a pen and paper in her purse and carefully made a list of everything I needed to return. The bank card the Fosters had given me was on my nightstand. I hadn't spent a cent on it. The clothes Mom bought me still had their tags attached. The car Dad gave me was underwater beneath the lighthouse and probably couldn't be driven anymore. If I needed to pay them back for it, they could sell the little house Grandma Jo had left me. I stopped writing. There didn't seem to be anything else to return. I'd lived with the Fosters for three months, but everything I had there wouldn't even fill a suitcase. The spare phone suddenly lit up. Gemma had sent me a voice message. She sounded perfectly alert, without the slightest trace of the weakness you'd expect after such a fright. "Why aren't you back yet? I was only trying to scare you. I didn't actually tell you to stay there all night." I replied, "Nolan told me not to come back." A few seconds later, she called me directly. "He was just speaking out of anger. Can't you tell?" "I don't understand." She went silent for a moment, as though she'd finally remembered what I was like. "Carly, you're not seriously still at the lighthouse, are you?" "Yes." "What is wrong with you?" "I have an illness." My answer left her speechless. Someone nearby called for her to come over. She lowered her voice and warned me, "You can't show anyone in the family what's on that spare phone. What happened last night was just a prank between Nolan and me. If you tell them and get Nolan in trouble with Mom and Dad, I'll never forgive you." I agreed. "Okay. I won't tell anyone." Gemma audibly let out a breath of relief. Before hanging up, she added casually, "You should stay away for a few more days. No one in this family wants to see you anyway." The call ended. I put the spare phone into her purse and carefully zipped it shut. A deafening crash suddenly came from downstairs. The entire lighthouse tilted toward the ocean for a moment. Then the emergency speaker on the wall came to life. "Due to storm conditions, the foundation of the South Bay lighthouse is becoming unstable. Anyone trapped inside should fire an emergency flare immediately." The glass cabinet was right in front of me. Dragging my injured leg, I crawled over and picked up the emergency hammer beside it. All I had to do was swing it. Then I might have a chance to leave here alive. I raised the hammer. Suddenly, I remembered my first day back with the Fosters. Mom had held my hand, her eyes red, and said, "Carly, this is your home now." I'd taken those words literally too. So I tried not to take anything from Gemma, not to cause trouble, and not to upset her. I thought that as long as I behaved, I'd always be allowed to stay. But Gemma had just told me herself that no one in that house wanted to see me. Slowly, I lowered the hammer and rested my forehead against the cold glass. The roar of a helicopter came from the distance. A bright searchlight cut through the rain, sweeping back and forth across the black ocean. If I fired a flare, they would find me. I smashed the glass and took one from the cabinet. The cold metal pressed into my palm. Countless voices crowded my mind. The doctor had told me never to take medicine again. Mom had told me not to come home and upset Gemma. Nolan had told me that even if I died out here, I wasn't allowed to call them for help. And Gemma had said no one in that family wanted to see me. Everyone had given me clear instructions. Only my own voice was quiet. So quiet I could barely hear it. It seemed to be asking whether I was allowed to live, too. But no one had ever taught me how to listen to my own voice. The lighthouse shook violently again. A huge crack split the wall. Seawater and sand poured through it, rising to my waist in an instant. I held the flare in my hand but never pulled the firing cord. When the water reached my chest, a familiar, agonizing pain tore through my heart. I curled in on myself. My vision slowly faded into darkness. Through the haze, I felt as though I were back in that kitchen when I was seven. I'd been starving for three days. My foster mother tossed half a moldy dinner roll onto the table. I asked her whether I could eat now that I'd finished all my work. She didn't answer. No one answered me now either. The freezing water rose over my mouth and nose. I slowly closed my eyes. This time, I no longer had to wait for anyone to take those words back. Chapter 4 When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the Foster house. My injuries were gone. My soaked dress was dry again, and my broken leg no longer hurt. I stood in the middle of the living room and looked down at the floor. I had no shadow. Conrad carried flowers and walked straight through me. He didn't stop or look back. I followed him into the ballroom. They were setting up the birthday party that had been interrupted the night before. Mom felt Gemma had been wronged, so first thing that morning, she'd ordered fresh flowers and another cake. Dad sat on the couch making a phone call. "Freeze all the cards under Carly's name. They can be reactivated when she comes home and apologizes to Gemma." I felt my empty pockets. There was no need. I'd never used the card anyway. Nolan stood by the window and called me several times in a row. Each time he heard the message saying my phone was off, his expression grew darker. "So now she's using her disappearance to threaten us. Let's see how long she can hide out there." He opened my contact and sent me a voice message. "Carly, when I told you not to come back last night, I only said it because I was angry. But deliberately staying out of contact this long is childish. "Come back before midnight tonight and apologize to Gemma. Otherwise, don't ever set foot in our house again." The message failed to send. Dad had confiscated my phone the night before and left it in his study. As for the spare phone in the lighthouse, it had sunk into the ocean with the wreckage. However, Nolan assumed I'd blocked him. He slammed his phone onto the coffee table. "Fine. If she's so determined, she can stay gone forever." I stood in front of him and nodded seriously. "Okay." But he couldn't hear me anymore. Gemma came downstairs in a new dress. She looked a little pale, and her eyes kept darting toward her phone. Since early that morning, she'd called the spare phone more than a dozen times, but she still hadn't told the family where I'd gone. "Is Carly still not back?" Mom straightened the hem of her dress. "Don't worry about her. She deliberately disappeared on your birthday because she wants the whole family fussing over her." Gemma bit her lip. "But Carly doesn't understand words spoken in anger." Nolan gave a dismissive laugh. "She's inflexible, not stupid. She's twenty years old. Do you really think she'd never come back just because of a couple of things I said in anger? Stop making excuses for her." Gemma's lips moved, but in the end, she said nothing about the lighthouse. Just then, Conrad came downstairs. "Mr. and Mrs. Foster, what should we do with Miss Carly's room?" Dad didn't even look up. "She doesn't want to come back, does she? Clear out her things and turn the room into an art studio for Gemma." I followed Conrad upstairs. I didn't have much—a few pieces of clothing with the tags still attached, the old wooden box Grandma Jo had left me, and a notebook I used specifically to record the things my family said. On the first page was the promise Mom made when she brought me home. "Carly, this is your home now." The second page held Dad's words. "A daughter of the Foster family should never have to worry about anyone else's attitude toward her." On the last page were only the two lines I'd written the night before: "If Gemma doesn't come back, don't you ever come back either. Even if you die out there, don't bother us." Conrad turned to the last page, and his expression shifted slightly. He carried the notebook downstairs. "Mr. and Mrs. Foster, could this be something Miss Carly left..." "Throw it away." Mom was putting a necklace on Gemma and didn't even turn around. "She deliberately writes down everything we say when we're angry. Isn't that just her way of proving we've mistreated her?" I watched Conrad close the notebook. So I was the only one expected to remember the things they'd said. That evening, the birthday party began again. The lights went out, and twenty candles illuminated Gemma's face. Mom and Dad stood on either side of her. Nolan personally placed a birthday crown on her head. The emcee smiled and asked about me, "Didn't the Fosters recently find their biological daughter? Why isn't she here tonight?" Nolan took the microphone, his tone indifferent. "She couldn't adjust to life here, so she left on her own. Today's Gemma's birthday. There's no need to mention someone irrelevant." I stood outside the crowd and looked down at my transparent fingers. So I was already someone who didn't matter. Gemma closed her eyes and made a wish. "I hope our family stays together forever." Mom pulled her into her arms. Dad smiled and urged her to blow out the candles. Nolan ruffled her hair. "Don't worry. No one's going to tear us apart." The instant the candles went out, the ballroom doors suddenly opened. Two police officers stood outside. Dad frowned and went to meet them. "Today is my daughter's birthday. Whatever this is, come back tomorrow." The officer in front, Wade Lester, glanced at Gemma, surrounded by the family. "Are Carly Foster's family members here?" Nolan walked over impatiently. "Did she call the police and say we wouldn't let her come home? Please tell her there's a limit to how far she can take a tantrum." Officer Lester didn't answer. He took out a clear evidence bag. Inside were my waterlogged ID and the red emergency flare I'd never fired. The smile slowly froze on Mom's face. "Why do you have Carly's things?" Officer Lester was silent for a moment. "This afternoon, rescue workers recovered a woman's body from the collapsed remains of the South Bay lighthouse. The deceased has been identified as Carly Foster." The ballroom went silent. The wineglass slipped from Nolan's hand and shattered on the floor. Mom staggered back a step, as though she hadn't understood. "Who did you say died?" Officer Lester looked at them. "Carly Foster. Her time of death was 4:17 this morning. There's also something we need to ask the family." He raised the evidence bag containing the flare. "Before the lighthouse collapsed, Carly had already reached the emergency equipment. Why did she never send a distress signal before she died?"