“Chauffeur?” Nolan’s voice came from behind me.

He had returned from the car, carrying three large pastry boxes.

His eyes were locked onto Tessa with an expression that made the air between them instantly drop ten degrees.

Tessa’s laughter stiffened.

“Oh, hi, Nolan,” she said, her voice dropping into a cooler, sharper cadence. “I was just joking. Maya knows how grateful I am.”

“Do you?” Nolan asked quietly, setting the bakery boxes down on a nearby patio table.

“Nolan, please,” I murmured, tugging lightly at his sleeve.

Tessa’s eyes narrowed slightly.

She took a slow sip of her champagne, her gaze drifting down to the simple silver band on my finger.

“I heard you postponed your clinic appointment again,” Tessa said, her tone dripping with faux sympathy that did not reach her eyes. “Mom told me. I’m so sorry, Maya. But honestly, maybe the universe is telling you something. Stress isn’t good for conception anyway.”

The words felt like a slap directly across the face.

My breath caught in my throat.

“We didn’t postpone it, Tessa,” I said, my voice shaking despite my best efforts. “We canceled it. Because eighteen thousand dollars went to your Maryland treatment retainer.”

A dead silence fell over the small circle of her friends.

Tessa’s cheeks flushed a bright, blotchy crimson.

“Maya, lower your voice,” she hissed, leaning in so the others wouldn’t hear. “Are you really going to bring up money right now? Today? At my remission party?”

“I wasn’t bringing up money until you lectured me about the universe,” I replied, the anger that had been simmering for six months finally breaking through the surface.

“Girls!”

My mother materialized between us like an apparition.

Her smile was plastered across her face for the benefit of the guests, but her manicured fingers dug painfully into my upper arm.

“What is happening here?” Mom whispered harshly through clenched teeth. “Maya, what did I say? Step away from your sister.”

“Mom, she’s bringing up the money again,” Tessa whined, her eyes instantly welling with perfectly timed tears. “In front of Chloe and Sarah! She’s trying to ruin this for me!”

“Maya Vance, how dare you!” Mom gasped, her grip on my arm tightening until it bruised.

“Let go of my wife, Eleanor,” Nolan commanded, his voice cutting through the noise like an axe.

Mom recoiled from Nolan’s glare, dropping her hand.

“You two are guests in this house,” Mom spat. “If you cannot celebrate your sister’s miracle without poisoning the air with bitterness, you can leave!”

“Bitter?” Nolan took a step forward, his towering frame casting a shadow over both Eleanor and Tessa. “Maya gave up her chance to be a mother for this girl.”

“Nobody forced her!” Tessa suddenly shrieked.

The volume of her voice turned heads across the entire lawn.

The backyard fell quiet.

Conversations stopped mid-sentence.

The ice rattling in glasses ceased.

My father turned around from the microphone, his face pale with horror.

“Tessa, sweetheart, what’s wrong?” Dad hurried over.

“Maya is attacking me!” Tessa sobbed, burying her face into our mother’s shoulder. “She thinks I owe her my life because she helped me! She wants me to apologize for being alive!”

“I never said that, Tessa!” I said, my voice cracking under the weight of fifty pairs of judgmental eyes staring directly at me.

“You’ve been sulking since the day I got diagnosed!” Tessa cried, pulling away from Mom and pointing a manicured finger straight at my chest. “You hate that people paid attention to me! You hate that everyone rallied around me instead of your stupid baby plans!”

“Tessa, stop!” I begged, horrified. “That is not true!”

“You’re pathetic, Maya!” Tessa screamed, her composure entirely shattering as her face twisted in pure rage. “Get out of my face! Get out of my party!”

She lunged forward with both hands.

It wasn’t a warning tap.

It wasn’t an accidental brush.

Tessa slammed both of her open palms with full force against my chest.

I stumbled backward off balance.

My heels caught the uneven edge of the patio flagstone, and I fell hard over a heavy plastic Yeti cooler filled with melted ice and canned beers.

The sharp metal latch of the cooler gouged into my right wrist as I tried to brace my fall.

The cooler flipped over with a deafening crash, dumping fifty pounds of ice, sloshing water, and aluminum cans across the patio.

A sharp, searing pain tore through my wrist.

Warm blood immediately welled up, dripping onto the concrete and soaking into the hem of my dress.

Gasps echoed through the yard.

Someone dropped a glass, the shatter ringing out like a gun report.

I sat on the wet, freezing stones, clutching my bleeding wrist, trembling so violently my teeth clattered together.

My mother didn’t look at the blood.

She didn’t look at my torn skin.

She rushed straight to Tessa, wrapping her arms around her trembling younger daughter.

“Oh, my poor baby, look what she made you do,” Mom cooed loudly, smoothing Tessa’s hair.

Dad stood over me, looking not with concern, but with deep, disgusted frustration.

“Maya, look at this mess,” Dad muttered under his breath, shaking his head. “Look what you did to your sister’s nerves. Apologize to her right now.”

“What?” I choked out, tears of physical pain and sheer betrayal blinding my vision. “She shoved me, Dad! I’m bleeding!”

“Be the bigger person!” my mother demanded sharply, glaring down at me beside the overturned cooler, just as she had demanded my entire life. “Be the bigger person, Maya! She’s emotionally unstable from chemotherapy! Apologize for upsetting her, get yourself cleaned up, and don’t make a scene!”

Be the bigger person.

The mantra of my childhood.

When Tessa stole my college savings for an unaccredited modeling academy in Los Angeles: Be the bigger person, Maya.

When Tessa wrecked my first car and lied to the police: Be the bigger person, Maya.

When Tessa spent eighteen thousand dollars of our IVF money while I bled on the concrete: Be the bigger person.