Chapter 1: The Night They Left Me to Freeze

When my family abandoned me in a blizzard, my fiancé told me I had to admit my cousin had won before he’d even consider picking me up.

“Don’t ruin the mood for everyone,” he said.

Then he hung up.

I wasn’t wearing a coat. I was standing outside a mountain visitor center, shuttered by the storm.

Ten minutes earlier, my cousin, Paige, had said she wanted to see the elk and asked me to get out of the car to save her a spot.

The second I stepped away, my family drove off, leaving me alone in the snow.

Almost immediately, messages flooded the family group chat.

They were watching my live location, taking bets on how long it would take for me to break down and beg for mercy.

The chat filled with laughter. They said I was too sensitive, that I could never take a joke.

My fingers stiff with cold, I begged for help in the chat.

My fiancé, Caleb, was sitting right there with them.

He said he’d think about driving back for me if I admitted, out loud, that Paige had won their little game.

Before I could answer, he hung up.

Paige had once trashed my apartment to make it look like a break-in.

I was so terrified I called the police. She told them it was just a prank.

She’d also pretended to be Caleb and texted me a breakup message, then filmed my breakdown as I sobbed on the floor.

They always said family should be able to take a joke.

So I apologized, over and over, and pretended none of it hurt.

But this time, they knew a blizzard was coming. They’d lured me into the mountains, where there was no cell signal.

The group chat was still demanding I admit I’d lost.

I looked down at the disconnected call on my phone, and suddenly, I didn’t feel sad anymore.

Just tired.

Through the storm, a state snowplow emerged.

The driver pulled me into the warm cab and asked if I needed a ride back to Denver.

I shook my head and pointed in the opposite direction.

It wasn’t until they realized I wasn’t going to beg anymore that the game they’d been laughing at for ten years finally spun out of their control.

***

As the snowplow wound down the mountain road, I huddled by the heater vent, my fingers still trembling.

I could practically see the scene back at the house.

Paige would be staring at my dot on Life360, a smirk on her face. “I bet she’s bawling her eyes out within the hour.”

It was the same smirk she’d worn on prom night after dumping a glass of red wine on my white dress.

I’d hidden in the bathroom for half an hour, trying to scrub it out, while she linked arms with my father and told everyone I’d done it myself for attention.

My parents wouldn’t be worried about me.

They’d just be complaining. “There Nora goes again. She’s so sensitive. She just can’t take a joke.”

When Paige was thirteen, she locked me in the basement and took my phone, leaving me in the dark all night.

The next morning, when my mother opened the door, her first words weren’t to ask if I was okay.

She said, “You’re too old to be afraid of the dark. Don’t make Paige feel guilty.”

And Caleb?

He’d probably be frowning, feigning concern. “Maybe this went a little too far,” he’d say, then, before Paige could get upset, quickly add, “But Nora really does need to learn to fit in.”

I closed my eyes, a sudden memory surfacing. Before we left, he had asked my father about the signal and the weather in the mountains.

He’d known.

He’d known I hadn’t brought a coat, and he still got in that car and drove away.

My father, Robert Bennett, was his company’s most important client. To secure the contract renewal, Caleb played golf with my father, booked restaurants for my mother, and every time Paige bullied me, he told me to just put up with it.

It wasn’t that he didn’t love me.

It was that his love had a price.

And I would always come after his contracts, his ambition, and the Bennett family’s approval.

Paige had to be thrilled right now.

She’d be leaning against Caleb, bragging, “See? She’ll come crawling back. Nora would never dare to leave us.”

Caleb might even laugh.

He used to hold me and say, “For our future, sometimes we have to be strategic. We have to keep Paige happy.”

It wasn’t until tonight that I understood what that strategy really meant.

It meant serving me up for their amusement.

The snowplow driver dropped me at a motel off the highway.

I rented the cheapest room they had. Without even taking off my soaked shoes, I connected to the public Wi-Fi and pulled up the apartment listing I’d bookmarked three days ago.

Downtown Chicago. One bedroom. Twelve-month lease. Immediate move-in.

I’d kept putting it off.

I couldn’t bear to leave my friends in Denver, the career I knew, and the family I’d spent years trying to hold together.

Now, all that hesitation felt ridiculous.

I filled out the application, signed electronically, and paid the deposit.

By the time the confirmation email landed in my inbox, my phone was at one percent.

The blizzard battered the window, but for the first time, I wasn’t afraid.

Before the screen went dark, I saw the new address on the lease.

It wasn’t an impulse.

It was my backup plan.

It was my way out.

My phone died, and the room fell silent.

I looked out at the white-blurred highway and slowly tightened my grip on the key to a door I’d never opened before.

When the only person you can rely on is yourself, you always find a way forward.