And the attic.
That was mine.
It had a slanted ceiling and one small window, and in the summer it got so hot I slept with wet washcloths on my neck. In the winter, I could see my breath in the mornings. There was no heating vent up there. Dad said it would cost too much to put one in.
“You like it up there,” Mom would say whenever anyone asked. “Emma’s our little bookworm. She likes being alone.”
I didn’t like being alone. I just didn’t have a choice.
Paige was five years older than me. Lauren was three years older. They were blond and pretty and easy, the kind of girls who knew how to laugh at the right moment at a dinner party. I was dark-haired and serious and asked too many questions.
“Why does Lauren get to go to Paris?” I asked once, when I was eleven. It was Lauren’s fourteenth birthday trip. Paige had gotten the same trip when she turned fourteen.
