ee

evening, the Hilton

agne towers throwing back cold, brilliant light. Manhatta

, and sat alone in the furthest corn

y noise and cold air came with it. Hank had put me here deliberately: it let the family display its "generosi

ld sitting all t

head. Breann drifted over to the tab

e South Sea pearl necklace Hank had personally bid on

ran underneath them. "If I hadn't come back to this family, my sister wouldn't have sunk to sitting in a corner m

I just ran my fingers slowly a

Breann. Nobody needs to

face full of contempt. He looked down at me the way you look at a s

ocket: a battered silver harmonica

bed the secondhand markets of Manhattan to buy it for his birthday. For the next decade he carried it everyw

n box with distaste, and the corner of

bribing me with cheap jun

, and turned h

ac

y foot. The body split wit

shoe and, in front of several waiters a

l echoed absurdly along the

t every clumsy piece of childhood affection I had ever poured into it - into scrap. "As for the garbage you give me, it makes me sick

en metal spattere

nerve soaked in cold water. Not the sharp pain

in ten minutes. What

t even glance at the crushed harmonica on the floor. He only f

with pressure. "When the emcee calls your name, you walk up to the main

down at

ed with sel

for eighteen years of charity... I hereby voluntarily renounce my engagem

s eyes freezing cold. "Put away that pathetic self-respect of yours. If anything goes wrong tonight, I will mak

ne, one standing over eighteen years of my belongings ground into the

the humiliating script

in