Prologue
My daughter was an obsessive stalker fan. She drained every cent we had to fund her celebrity obsession — and when that wasn't enough, she went to the loan sharks.
My husband and I worked ourselves half to death trying to pay it all back.
We sold our blood at some shady, back-alley clinic. That's where we contracted HIV.
We didn't want to be a burden to her. So we jumped. Both of us. Together.
And at our funeral? She was livestreaming it. Profiting off our tragedy. Spreading sexual slander about us for clicks.
Then I opened my eyes again.
I was back. Back to the day she threatened to cut me off if I didn't give her more money.
I watched her scramble to pack her bags, and all I felt was a cold, quiet smile behind my eyes.
"This is all because of my birth family trauma! I'm going to find my rich uncle!"
"Don't let the door hit you on the way out." I opened it for her. Calm as anything.
What she didn't know was that my brother Felix — the one with pica disorder — had picked up a prion infection in Africa.
Once prions get into your system, the fatality rate is one hundred percent.
Chapter 1
My daughter wouldn't stop complaining.
"I heard Uncle Felix made a fortune in Africa. If you hadn't insisted on raising me, I'd be a trust fund princess by now!"
"I've always known. He's my real father!"
"You only raised me so you could leech off my good luck!"
She glared at me like I was her worst enemy.
Mabel wasn't ours. Not biologically.
My brother got some woman pregnant. My mother took one look at the baby — a girl — and tossed her into the pigpen to die.
I snuck her out. Took her home. Raised her as my own.
I had no idea I was raising an ungrateful wretch.
In my last life, Mabel developed a celebrity obsession. She took out loan shark debt to fund it.
She blew hundreds of thousands of dollars tracking her idol's schedule — booking the same business class flights, the same luxury hotels. Every single day, she bled us dry like a leech.
My husband and I worked our day jobs, then spent every night delivering food, driving rideshares, collecting recyclables. Eventually, Mabel even forced us to sell our blood. We did everything we could to keep up with her demands.
I tried, gently, to reason with her. "Mabel, honey, the SATs are coming up. Maybe focus on studying for a while — "
She climbed straight to the rooftop and threatened to jump.
The color drained from my face. I dropped to my knees and begged her to come down.
She stood there chewing bubblegum, grinning, filming me on her phone. "Slap yourself a hundred times. And every time you do it, you say 'I'm sorry, Mrs. Justin Greer.' Do that, and I won't jump."
Justin Greer. The celebrity she was obsessed with.
I looked at her legs dangling over the railing and slapped myself across the face.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Justin Greer!" "I'm sorry, Mrs. Justin Greer!"
A hundred slaps. By the end, my mouth was bleeding. Only then did she climb down, nice and slow.
She shoulder-checked me hard as she walked past.
"You really did a shit job raising me."
"Now give me another fifteen grand. I'm booking out the entire business class cabin — just me and Justin."
After we died, our daughter showed up to the funeral in a red dress. Livestreaming.
"Who died? My parents! They were sleeping around and caught some nasty disease!"
"Honestly, I had no idea my mom was such a slut."
Your heart can go cold in a single second.
This time around, I wasn't raising another ungrateful wretch.
This time, my husband and I were going to live. Healthy. Together.
