PROLOGUE
Eleven years ago…
“I win!”Seventeen-year-old Cera Davidson announced proudly.
Slapping the only remaining card in her hand down onto the pile, she wore a wide, toothy grin as she settled back into her chair.
Across the table from where she sat, Cera’s mom and Richard Pike—her mom’s live-in boyfriend—both groaned out a collectively playful, “Noooo!”
Her little sister, however, was no longer in the playful mood.
“No fair!” The adorable nine-year-old crossed her arms with a huff. “Youalwayswin.”
“Not my fault I’m better at Uno than you are.”
“Well it’s notmyfault you had eight years to learn the game and practice before I was evenborn.”
Cera felt her lips twitch, but she didn’t dare laugh at her sister’s childish anger. She remembered being that age and what it felt like to always be a step behind the adults, no matter how hard she tried keeping up.
“Sorry, Charlie.” She nudged the youngster.
“My name’s not Charlie.”
“My bad. I’m sorry,Callie.” Another gentle nudge.
Cera watched her sister closely. Though it took a few seconds, the set of light brown eyes identical to her own—and their mother’s—softened. The anger that had been there a moment earlier gone.
“Can we play one more game?”
“I don’t know if we have time, kiddo,” Richard answered for her. With a quick glance to the small, round clock hanging against the room’s flowery wallpaper, the fifty-two-year-old man who’d appeared in their lives at the exact right time shook his head. “It’s almost your bedtime.”
Callie’s head swung in the clock’s direction. The table grew quiet as Cera, her mom, and Richard all gave the youngest player a moment to calculate the correct time of day.
Pulling her bottom lip between her crooked teeth, the tiny girl twisted a lock of long brown hair around her finger. Lines formed in her forehead as she concentrated.
It was a look Cera had seen countless times. Mostly during their after-school homework sessions.
On the weeknights when she wasn’t scheduled to work, the two sisters would sit at the kitchen table—side-by-side in the same chairs they were in now—and do their schoolwork while music played on their mom’s countertop radio.
It had been that way since Callie was in kindergarten. From day one, Cera had insisted they sit next to one another because it was easier when it came time to help.
She did that a lot. Helped. Since the day their dad walked out on them, Cera had seen it as her job to help her mom in whatever way she could.
At first, it was doing the easier household chores. Setting the table. Drying dishes. Dusting. After Callie was born, Cera became the family’s live-in babysitter.
A responsibility she’d been more than happy to take on.
“Richard’s right, Bug. “She used her nickname for Callie. “You’ve got school tomorrow.”
“So do you.” Her sister frowned again. “I still don’t understand why you get to stay up later than me when we both have to be at school at the exact same time.”
“Because you’re still growing, Calliope,” their mother answered. “And we do our best growing when we’re asleep.”
“Isn’tshestill growing?”
“Nope.” Cera popped a piece of buttery popcorn into her mouth and chewed. “Dr. Evans said I’m as tall as I’m gonna get.”
Unfortunately.