Chapter 1 - The Frosting on the Altar
The scent of spun sugar always made my throat tighten, even before that Saturday night. In my family, sugar was never just a dessert; it was a bribe, a peace offering, or a weapon coated in buttercream.
My sister Samantha’s twenty-seventh birthday fell exactly seven days after I walked across the stage at the municipal auditorium in a black cap and gown, clutching a degree in organizational communications that had taken me five grueling years, two part-time shifts at a campus bookstore, and an ungodly amount of generic caffeine pills to earn. I was twenty-four. I was bone-tired. My lower back still carried the dull ache of carrying moving boxes down three flights of stairs from my college apartment into the sub-leased studio I had rented across town.
I didn’t want to go to the party.
When I woke up on Saturday morning with a migraine blooming behind my left eye, my thumb hovered over the screen of my phone. I considered typing out a brief, apologetic message: *Migraine’s terrible today, Sam. Dropped your gift on the counter yesterday. Have an amazing night.*
I knew what would follow if I hit send.
My mother’s call would arrive within seven minutes. It was always seven minutes—just enough time for Samantha to take a screenshot, post a passive-aggressive remark in the family group chat, and dial Mom with tears in her voice. *Hannah’s making it about herself again. She couldn’t even give me one night.*
And Mom would sigh into the receiver, using that tired, velvet-soft tone she had perfected over twenty-four years of refereeing our lives. *Hannah, honey, please. You know how sensitive Samantha is about milestone birthdays. She already felt overshadowed by your graduation dinners all week. Just put on some concealer, take two ibuprofen, and show your face for an hour. Don’t start a war over a headache.*
So I put on concealer. I swallowed the ibuprofen. I drove forty-five minutes across town in fifty-degree drizzle, carrying a gift bag containing the eighty-dollar bottle of French amber perfume Samantha had lingered over at the department store counter back in November.
Her apartment was on the third floor of an old brick walk-up in the arts district. The stairs smelled of boiled cabbage and wet wool. Inside, the living room was packed with thirty people, the air humid with body heat, cheap prosecco, and the floral blast of half a dozen scented candles. Samantha was in the center of the room wearing a silk wrap dress the color of crushed cherries. Her dark hair was blown out in sleek, polished waves, her cheeks flushed with the high that only an audience could give her.
"Hannah’s here!" she announced to the room the moment my sneakers cleared the threshold. Her voice was bright, pitched slightly higher than normal—the register she reserved for entertaining. "Look at you! You actually made it out of bed after your grand academic marathon!"
A ripple of polite laughter moved through her coworkers and college friends.
I smiled. My jaw muscles ached with the effort. "Happy birthday, Sam."
I handed her the bag. She peered inside, gave an appreciative hum, and set it on the entryway table without taking the bottle out. "Put your coat in the back. Jenny’s in the kitchen helping with the charcuterie board. Go earn your keep."
That was how it worked. It was Samantha’s world; the rest of us paid rent through small humiliations and errands.
In the kitchen, Jenny was slicing smoked gouda with a serrated knife that looked dull enough to ride. Jenny had been my roommate during my junior year and had somehow stayed entangled in our extended social circle. She looked up, her dark eyes flashing with instant sympathy.
"You look like you need a nap and a shot of espresso," Jenny muttered, handing me a clean wooden board.
"I need about three days in a dark room with the blinds nailed shut," I replied, taking the knife from her. "How bad is it out there?"
"She’s been drinking since two," Jenny said under her breath, glancing toward the arched doorway. "She told your Aunt Linda that your degree was basically 'glorified administrative assistant training' right before Linda left."
A familiar, dull heat spread across my chest, but I pressed it down. I had years of practice pressing things down. You learned to keep your balance on Samantha’s tightrope by making yourself as small and quiet as possible. If you had no edges, she had nothing to catch you on.
At nine o'clock, the lights dimmed.
Someone brought out the cake. It was a massive, two-tiered vanilla confection covered in an ornate, heavy layer of white Italian buttercream, decorated with piped rosettes and edible gold leaf. Two sparkler candles hissed and showered white sparks over the sugar.
The room erupted into the birthday song. Samantha stood behind the dining room table, swaying slightly, both hands clasped beneath her chin in mock humility. She blew out the candles with a theatrical flourish, her friends cheering and clapping.
"Photos!" someone yelled. It was Kevin, her boyfriend’s roommate, holding up an iPhone with the flash already glaring. "Sam, get the birthday shot!"
Samantha grabbed my wrist before I could retreat toward the kitchen. Her grip was tight, her nails digging slightly through the fabric of my cotton sweater. "Hannah! Come here! Sibling photo! Come on, let’s show everyone the family brilliance!"
I tried to pull back gently. "Sam, no, you take it with your friends. I’m just—"
"Get over here," she hissed under her breath, pulling me into the frame with a sudden, jerky force that almost made me spill the glass of seltzer in my left hand.
I stood beside her. I arranged my face into the pleasant, neutral mask I had worn to every holiday dinner since middle school. The phones went up. At least four people were filming.
Samantha leaned down, dipped two fingers deep into the side of the bottom tier, and scooped up a thick, glistening dollop of white buttercream.
She turned toward me, her eyes wide, gleaming with that dangerous, manic playfulness I knew too well.
"No," I said.
My voice was not loud, but it was clear. It cut right through the ambient chatter of the room.
Samantha grinned, stepping closer. The frosting glistened on her fingertips.
"I mean it, Sam," I said, leaning my upper body back, my heels pressing against the leg of a heavy wooden dining chair behind me. "Don't."
"Relax," she laughed.
I saw her eyes flick to the left.
She looked directly at Kevin’s phone. She checked the angle of the lens.
In that fraction of a second, I realized that my refusal was not a deterrent to her; it was the fuel. A compliant younger sister was boring. A younger sister resisting made for better content. It made the joke punchier.
"Don't—"
She didn't use her fingers.
She reached down with her whole palm, dug her fingers under the cardboard cake round, and brought a jagged, four-inch wedge of dense sponge and heavy frosting straight upward into my face.
The force of it was not playful. It was a shove disguised as slapstick.
My head snapped back. The bridge of my nose caught the edge of the cardboard base with a sharp, sickening crunch of cartilage. Cold, greasy, suffocating sugar shoved upward into my nostrils, into my open mouth, sealing my eyelashes together in an instant whiteout.
The air left my lungs in a strangled gasp. I took an involuntary breath in through my nose, and the buttercream sucked deep into my nasal passages, hot and oily and choking.
My foot caught on the chair leg. I stumbled backward, my hip slamming violently into the corner of the sideboard, sending a stack of ceramic plates clattering across the wood.
The room went dead silent for half a heartbeat.
Then Samantha let out a loud, theatrical shriek of laughter, clapping her frosting-covered hands together.
"Oh my God!" she screamed, looking around the room for approval. "Look at her! Hannah, don't be so dramatic! It's just cake!"
Around the room, a few people chuckled uncertainly. Someone laughed loudly near the back—Kevin, amused by the chaos.
I stood there blindly, the grease burning my eyes, scraping frosting off my eyelids with trembling fingers. The sugar in my throat triggered a violent gag reflex. I doubled over, coughing, gasping for air that tasted like almond extract and lard.
"Look at her face," Samantha's voice floated over me, bright, amused, entirely untroubled. "She looks like a ghost. Hannah, breathe, for God’s sake. It washes off."
I didn't say a word. I couldn't. My throat felt like it was closing up around a ball of wet dough.
May you like
I turned blindly toward the hallway, one hand scraping frosting from my cheek and wiping it onto my jeans, the other feeling along the drywall until I found the bathroom door. I slammed it behind me and turned the brass lock until it clicked.
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