The day I was diagnosed with smiling depression, my parents were finalizing their divorce.

My father, a respected surgeon, had his arm wrapped around one of his female patients, staring down my mother with arctic detachment. "Since you’ve already decided I’m unfaithful," he said, "I might as well give you what you want." My mother’s eyes burned red.

Without missing a beat, she turned and pressed her lips against the mouth of the childhood friend who had pined after her for years. "Fine," she choked out. "Right back at you." My mother didn't notice that my father’s hand hovered an inch above the woman’s shoulder, never actually touching her.

And my father never realized that my mother’s kiss was nothing more than an angled stage trick, a desperate show of defiance. Drunk on mutual hatred, they turned to me and demanded a verdict. "Your mother is a shameless hypocrite.

She’s not fit to raise a dog, let alone you!" "Your father is a chronic cheater. You go with him, and you’ll end up in the gutter!" I was so terrified my teeth sank into my thumb, gnawing at the nail until warm blood coated my tongue.

I couldn't form a single syllable. All I could do was smile—a wide, frantic, mindless grin. Once upon a time, my smile was their favorite thing in the world. That afternoon, they looked at me with visceral disgust. "You make me sick," my mother spat.

Both assuming the other would take custody, they walked out to their separate cars and sped away in opposite directions. From that rainy afternoon on, I became an orphan.

Ten years later, my college academic advisor summoned them both to the dean’s office. "Her depressive disorder has reached a critical stage," Advisor Mitchell said, laying the medical chart flat on the mahogany desk. "She’s experiencing severe dissociative episodes.

She attempts suicide in her sleep almost every night.

If her roommate hadn't intervened last week, she would already be dead." My parents sat across from each other, glancing at my bright, cheerful expression with unvarnished irritation. "Look at her grinning from ear to ear," my father scoffed, crossing his legs. "Does that look like someone with clinical depression to you?" "If she really wanted to die, she’d be dead," my mother remarked, inspecting her French manicure. "Good riddance anyway.

She’s just bad blood." I didn’t defend myself. I only pulled the corners of my mouth wider, anchoring the grin in place until my jaw ached. I had always known they didn't love me. Out of ten fingernails, only one remained intact.

Once that last one was chewed down to the raw pink flesh, I knew I wouldn't have to be an eyesore in their world any longer.

I hadn't actually expected them to show up. Before they caught sight of each other, both looked immaculate—tailored suits, polished leather, the effortless sheen of uppermiddleclass respectability.

But the second their eyes locked, my father’s face darkened into thunder. "Well, well," he sneered. "Nearly starved Sunny to death, and now you come running to your exhusband to clean up your mess?" My mother gave a dry, humorless laugh. "Look who’s projecting.

It takes real talent to ruin a child as lowmaintenance as Sunny." She cut her eyes toward me, her gaze sliding over me like oil over water. "You got your poor taste from your father, clearly." "Poor taste?" my father fired back, his voice dropping an octave. "You’re the one who married damaged goods." He was referring to the man she had kissed all those years ago—her current husband.

My mother ignited on the spot, pointing a diamondringed finger in his face. "What right do you have to judge my life? You were the one who brought home a mistress first!" "How many times do I have to tell you?

Nora was never my mistress!" "Not a mistress? Then what was she? And what did that make me? Have some decency, Richard!" Listening to the venom spilling between them, the room seemed to shrink, warping backwards through time.

My limbs began to tremble uncontrollably. Instinctively, my thumb rose to my mouth, teeth digging into the ragged cuticle. Advisor Mitchell stared at them, visibly stunned by the sheer hostility in the room.

When I blinked through the haze, both of my parents were pointing at me with identical expressions of theatrical disbelief. "Depression?" my mother scoffed. "Suicidal every night?" my father echoed.

I quickly lowered my bloody fingers to my lap and offered them an obedient, placating beam. The smile seemed to sting them like a slap. Both turned their heads away in disdain. "See that? Look at that idiot grin.

That’s not what depression looks like." "If she’s trying every night, why hasn't she managed it once?" Every word hit like a dull blade sawing through bone. Yet I couldn't muster a single breath of protest.

This illness had lived under my skin for over a decade. The deeper the agony sank, the wider and brighter my smile stretched. Nobody ever believed someone like me could be drowning.

Only the people who had physically wrestled the razor from my hand in the dead of night understood how close to the edge I was standing. My parents didn't love me. It was only natural they didn't believe me.

Advisor Mitchell rubbed her temples in sheer frustration. "Mr. and Mrs. Evans—please. Mind your words. Her psychological state is entirely unfit for school right now.

The university's formal recommendation is that she take a medical leave of absence and return home to recover before resuming her studies." My mother’s refusal was instantaneous. "Let her father take her.

I already have a daughter at home to care for." My father pushed back just as fast. "I have a young son. Having a grown girl around the house isn't appropriate." My mother let out a sharp, mocking laugh. "Oh, wonderful.

You had a son with your little homewrecker? How utterly shameless." My father’s fists clenched on his knees. "Didn't you pop out a daughter for your loyal lapdog? Don't talk to me about shame, Evelyn!" My mother’s face flushed crimson.

Suddenly, she whipped around and aimed her fury straight at me. "Fine! Call me whatever you want! I can have children with whoever I damn well please—but the miserable thing I gave birth to for you, Richard?

I don't want her!" I bit down harder on the raw edge of my nail, tasting copper.

I sat there like a piece of refuse, kicked back and forth between two manicured shoes. "She has your eyes," my father muttered, his lip curling. "Looking at her makes my skin crawl.

If I take her home, the first thing I’ll do is drown her in the pool." "And she has your dimples when she smiles!" my mother snapped back. "I won't lift a finger for her. Let her kill herself if she wants to.

She’s just a reminder of everything I despise." My smile stretched so wide the corners of my lips felt like they were tearing. Tears pricked behind my eyelids, threatening to spill over the mask.

I leaned in quietly toward Advisor Mitchell’s ear, my voice barely a whisper: "Professor... can I just die right now? You see... neither of them wants me." Advisor Mitchell’s eyes softened into an agonizing mixture of grief and pity.

In the end, under her uncompromising insistence and threat of university intervention, an arrangement was hammered out: I would alternate staying with each of them, one day at a time, until my condition stabilized.

Before we walked out into the corridor, Advisor Mitchell pulled me aside, her hand resting gently on my shivering shoulder. "Sunny, listen to me. No parent truly hates their own flesh and blood.

They’re hurting, and they clearly haven't moved past their own anger, but they won't mistreat you. If anything goes wrong—anything at all—you call me immediately.

Promise me." Even the question of who would take me for the first night sparked a screaming match in the hallway. Neither wanted to be the first to burden their household.

We stood stalemated outside my dorm for nearly an hour, until my mother received a phone call from home. Pressed for time, she finally conceded with a furious glare.

I threw my few belongings into a worn canvas tote and climbed into the passenger seat of her sleek Mercedes. Glancing at the battered bag in my lap, her voice dripped with condescension. "Is that how your father raised you?

Traveling with a sack of garbage? Cheap bastard." I tucked my feet beneath the seat, trying to conceal the wornout soles of my canvas sneakers. Nobody had raised me. Nobody had bought me clothes.

A couple of oversized thriftstore shirts, two pairs of jeans, and some basic toiletries were the sum total of my worldly possessions.

My mother’s sharp eyes caught the gesture, dissecting my poverty in an instant. "Right," she muttered, adjusting her rearview mirror. "He has a precious son now. Why would he spend a dime on you?

When we get home, I’ll have to find you something decent. Walking around with you looking like this is embarrassing." I stayed silent, letting the familiar, appeasing smile paint itself across my face.

My mother caught my reflection in the glass, her expression souring into immediate revulsion. "Stop smiling like that. It’s pathetic." The muscles in my face seized, freezing halfway through the expression. "Okay...

Mom." She made a sharp, irritated sound in the back of her throat. "Don't call me Mom. If Harper hears you, she’ll be upset. You tell her you’re the daughter of an old acquaintance staying over for a few days. Understood?" I smiled. "Understood, Mrs.

Reed."

When we pulled into the driveway of the gated suburban house, a girl in a pastel designer dress came running down the front steps, throwing her arms around my mother’s waist. "Mommy!

Did you bring the pastries I asked for?" The cold, brittle edge in my mother’s face vanished completely, replaced by an intoxicating warmth. "Of course I did, sweetheart.

I bought every single flavor from the bakery." Harper gave my mother a loud, exaggerated kiss on the cheek. "I knew Mommy loved me best!" I stood a few paces back on the manicured lawn, my posture awkward, a knot of raw envy tightening in my throat.

Harper finally noticed me, cocking her head with open curiosity. "Who is that?" My mother’s tone flattened into absolute indifference. "Just someone staying over for a couple of days. Ignore her." Harper nodded, satisfied.

Following them into the sprawling house, I realized just how vast my mother’s life had become. There were multiple guest suites on the second floor, and my mother casually pointed toward one at the end of the hall.

Harper immediately pouted, tugging at my mother’s silk sleeve. "Mommy, no! That’s Judy’s room. She can’t have it!" I wondered briefly who Judy was. My mother tapped Harper’s nose with playful affection. "Look at you.

With so many American Girl dolls, can't Judy share a room with one of her friends for a night?" "No!

They all have to have their own private rooms!" "All right, all right, whatever you want." Harper had an enormous collection of porcelain and collector dolls, each apparently entitled to an entire guest suite.

Every bedroom upstairs was officially occupied.

That left only the damp basement storage room and the cramped servant’s quarters off the kitchen. "Pick whichever," my mother said dismissively, not even looking at me. "It’s not like you’re staying long." Harper stuck her tongue out at me, making a grotesque face before skipping off.

I offered a dutiful, polite smile as I carried my bag into the narrow maid’s room. "Thank you, Mrs. Reed."

That night, I was ripped from unconsciousness by a bloodcurdling scream. When my eyes opened, my vision was washed in crimson. The livein housekeeper was pinning me to the floor, her arms wrapped around my chest in a vice grip.

A blinding, thbbing agony pulsed from my forehead. The warm, metallic scent told me everything I needed to know: I had sleepwalked into another violent episode.

The screams brought my mother, Harper, and my mother’s husband, Thomas Reed, running down the hall. Harper peeked around her father’s hip, clapping her hands over her mouth in a muffled giggle. "Mommy was right!

You really are a lunatic!" My mother’s face was dark with fury, as if my bleeding skull was nothing more than an intentional public humiliation. Thomas, fully aware of who I was, placed a large, protective hand over Harper’s eyes. "Don't look, baby.

Go back to bed." Then, turning his gaze toward me, he gave a smooth, practical instruction to the housekeeper. "Since she can't control herself in her sleep, bind her wrists and ankles to the bedframe." The smile returned to my lips, unbidden and grotesque.

The housekeeper worked efficiently, treating my limbs like heavy trash bags. She wrapped the restraints tight, unconcerned with whether the nylon cut off the circulation to my fingers.

I spent the entire night tied flat to the mattress like a slab of meat on an altar, staring at the ceiling, unable to close my eyes for a single second.

By morning, my skin was mottled with purple bruises, and my balance was unsteady. True to her word, my mother brought a pile of clothes to the room.

Because I was severely underweight, the sweater hung loosely over my shoulders, effectively hiding the fresh abrasions on my wrists. Harper saw me wearing it in the hallway and immediately threw a tantrum. "Mommy!

Why did you give my clothes to the crazy person?" My mother didn't blink. "You’ve outgrown them anyway. They’re last season’s.

I’ll take you to the boutique this weekend and buy you whatever you want." A bucket of ice water seemed to dump over my head, washing away the pathetic spark of gratitude I had felt. They weren't new clothes. They were Harper’s discarded rags.

My mother caught the flicker of grief on my face and sneered. "A child of Richard Evans doesn't deserve a single dollar of my money.

If you feel so mistreated under my roof, pack your things and go crawl back to your father." I forced the corners of my mouth up into a bright, eager smile, shaking my head. "Not at all, Mrs. Reed.

I’m very grateful." My mother froze for a fraction of a second, unsettled by the dead light in my eyes, before turning on her heel and practically fleeing down the corridor.

That evening, my father arrived to pick me up. My mother walked me down the driveway, meeting my father’s critical, sweeping appraisal with a defensive smirk. "What?" she challenged. "Worried I beat her?

Don't worry, I’m not as low as you." My father shook his head, his words coated in venom. "I’m just shocked to see her still breathing.

I assumed she would have succeeded in killing herself last night so I wouldn't have to waste the gas." My mother’s expression darkened, and she shoved me hard toward his car door. "I wish she had. She’s an absolute nuisance.

With any luck, I won't have to see her face tomorrow." My father scowled. "You really want your own daughter dead?" "Of course I do!" she fired back without hesitation. "She’s a mistake." I stood silently on the asphalt between their idling luxury cars, the smile on my face stretched so tight it felt like porcelain about to shatter.

A crushing, oceandeep selfloathing settled over my chest, squeezing the air from my lungs. They were right. I was a nuisance. Why couldn't I just have died quietly in my dorm room?

If I had simply stopped breathing back at school, they wouldn't have had to see each other, wouldn't have had to reopen old wounds, wouldn't have had to scream. It was midsummer, but a bitter, bonedeep winter seemed to settle inside my veins.

Before I could fully process the ride, we arrived at my father’s house. There, I met his wife, Nora—his former cardiology patient, frail and delicate. Beside her stood their sevenyearold son, Toby, radiating boundless, bouncing energy.

The dining table was piled high with a lavish dinner spread. Toby grabbed my arm with surprising force, shoving me down into a chair. "Eat, weird sister!

Eat!" Overwhelmed by his apparent enthusiasm, I picked up the fork and took a bite of the casserole. Instantly, a rancid, chemical bitterness exploded across my palate. I gagged, coughing the mouthful onto my napkin.

Toby doubled over, pointing at me and shrieking with laughter. "You ate toad pee! You ate the dirt from the garden! Crazy sister is gonna grow bugs in her mouth!" My vision swam.

A violent wave of nausea hit my gut, and I dryheaved over the side of the chair. Nora’s soft, cultured voice drifted over me as she set a glass of warm water beside my plate. "I’m so sorry, dear. Toby is just going through a mischievous phase.

He’s making things up—we don't have anything like that in the house." My father’s scowl softened at his wife’s gentle tone. I took a trembling sip of the water, desperate to wash the taste from my tongue.

As soon as the glass touched the table, Toby leaned in, his small face twisting into a malicious grin as he whispered in my ear: "My mommy lied to you. I didn't make it up. And I crushed some of Mommy’s heart pills into that water.

Guess what’s gonna happen to your chest now?" The words had barely left his lips when a sharp, stabbing pain lanced through my sternum. A heavy dizziness crashed over my brain. Cold sweat erupted across my forehead, and my limbs turned to lead.

Unable to hold myself up, I collapsed forward onto the table, my cheek landing square in a plate of greasy gravy. Nora let out a theatrical gasp. "Richard, look at her! Why did she just drop like that?

Is this what depression does?" My father’s voice came from across the room, heavy with disgust. "Ignore her. Half of this illness is an act she rehearsed with her mother.

When she’s done putting on a show, she’ll get up on her own." My lungs fought for oxygen, the room spinning into dark, fractured shards. Nobody checked my pulse. Nobody called a doctor.

Around me, the easy, comfortable laughter of a complete, happy family drifted over the table. Just like at my mother’s house, I was an alien organism, an unwanted phantom at the feast.

As a tear rolled off my nose and dissolved into the grease on the porcelain plate, the last remnant of childhood fantasy evaporated. I had no home. I had never had one.

In the weeks that followed, the descent was steep and merciless. Whenever I rotated back to my mother’s estate, my existence ranked lower than that of the stray cats in the alley.

Harper called me "the psycho" with casual regularity, and my mother never once corrected her. Eventually, Harper learned the word my mother used behind closed doors—bastard. Children are quick studies.

Harper understood that a bastard had no parents to defend her, no safety net, and no voice. She realized I was an acceptable target. Soon, I wasn't even allowed at the dinner table.

Whenever my mother was out of the house, Harper treated me as her personal plaything. Though younger, she was wellfed and strong, while I was an empty shell of bone and nerve endings.

She forced me to play elaborate games of house, assigning me the role of the wicked stepmother or the villain.

Harper’s logic was flawless in its cruelty: "You eat our food, you sleep in our house, and every night our maid has to save your life from your crazy fits.

Don't you owe us?" I nodded numbly. "Yes." "So," Harper smiled, her eyes glittering with childish malice. Crack. Her palm struck my cheek with all the force her small arm could muster. "Villains have to be punished.

How else is the story supposed to end?" By bedtime, a distinct, red handprint bloomed across my cheekbone. My mother saw it when she came home. Harper widened her big, innocent eyes and pouted. "The crazy girl slapped herself, Mommy.

I saw her do it." My mother looked at the mark, looked at her daughter, and said nothing. She didn't call out the obvious lie.

Instead, late that night, she stepped into my cramped room and said quietly, "If you can't handle living here, go to your father’s." I smiled up at her from the floor, shaking my head. "No, Mrs. Reed.

I can handle it." The look my mother gave me was sudden, dark, and utterly indecipherable.

That night, I dreamed of the past. I dreamed of the years before the shouting began, when my mother would sit on the edge of my bed singing lullabies until I fell asleep, and my father would come home from the hospital and lift me onto his shoulders.

Then the dream fractured. My mother was holding Harper, her eyes like frozen glass: I don't want you, you miserable thing. My father was holding Toby’s hand, sneering down at me: Why are you still shameless enough to breathe our air?

I woke with a violent jolt. The cool night breeze whipped through my thin nightgown. I was standing on the ledge of the estate’s flat roof, my toes hanging over the concrete drop three stories below. One step.

Just one step, and the screaming in my head would finally stop. A hand clamped onto the back of my collar, yanking me violently backward onto the gravel. A stinging slap caught my face.

My mother was standing over me, chest heaving, her eyes wild with rage and panic. "Don't you dare fucking die on my property, you lunatic!" I blinked slowly, the world coming back into dull focus.

Shaking with residual adrenaline, my mother spun around and screamed at the terrified housekeeper standing by the roof door: "Why wasn't she tied down properly?! Pack your bags—you’re fired tomorrow morning!"

The following afternoon, a private psychiatrist was brought to the house. After forty minutes of evaluation, the doctor stepped into the foyer and spoke to my mother in hushed, grave tones.

Sitting on the bottom step of the staircase, I watched my mother’s rigid posture, a cold dread pooling in my gut. "Her condition is entirely unmanageable in a home setting," the doctor said, shaking his head. "She requires longterm, intensive inpatient care.

An isolated specialized facility abroad would be the only viable path." My mother said nothing. She simply turned and stared at me—a long, heavy, impenetrable look. The stone in my chest plummeted through the floorboards.

My mouth curled upward into a broad, hollow grin. I knew that look. I was being thrown away again.

By that evening, my mother had already booked an international ticket. Yet when the time came to leave for the airport, my mother received an urgent call regarding a family business emergency and had to leave abruptly.

It was Thomas Reed who carried my small canvas bag to the SUV. As the car pulled out of the driveway, the scenery outside the window began to shift. We weren't heading toward the international terminal.

The neon signs and highways dissolved into dark, unpaved rural roads, the city lights shrinking in the distance. A suffocating wave of panic rose in my throat. Habitually, my hand went to my mouth to bite my nails.

My teeth found only raw, mangled tissue. Blood welled up, coating my lips. A soft, dead smile touched my face. Right. Ten fingers. All ten nails were gone. It was time.

The car came to a stop outside an abandoned industrial warehouse on the rural edge of the county. Standing by the rusted corrugated doors was Nora, my father’s wife.

She had been waiting in the dark, her eyes fixed on me like I was a carcass on the side of the road.

She offered me a delicate, chilling smile. "Do you know why you’re here, Sunny?" Thomas adjusted his wirerimmed glasses, stepping up beside her with effortless arrogance. "Bouncing back and forth between two families is exhausting for everyone, isn't it?

Neither of your parents wants you around. What’s the point of dragging out a life like this?" He gestured toward the open threshold of the warehouse. "If you die in their homes, it creates legal complications.

But out here... nobody will look twice." I followed his gaze into the dark interior. On an overturned wooden crate sat an old, rusted utility knife.

My hand, resting inside my coat pocket, had been hovering over my phone, wanting to dial my mother’s number one last time. Slowly, my fingers relaxed, and the phone slipped deep into the lining. It wasn't just them.

My mother and my father wanted me gone. They had both signed off on this. If this was what they needed... I would be a good daughter.