Chapter 12

Jinx learned to smile before she learned to spell — and smiling became the skill that kept her safe. Through a quiet house, a mother who laughed for everyone else's children, a man who promised to protect her and didn't, and a brother who heard her and did nothing, she bottled everything up so well the world called it strength. Then came one real year with her mother, and the best friend who never stopped coming back. Telling him everything, all the way through, cracked open thirty years of silence. She isn't fixed. But all the pieces are there — and they're being held together now.