Part 2The Canary Who Became Doctor

The day I met Sebastian, I was standing on the ledge of a rooftop parking garage.

Passersby below were screaming, chirping like birds, telling me to "look on the bright side."

A firefighter had dialed my parents. I could hear them screaming through the receiver, loud enough for the wind to carry the words.

If you want to die, hurry up and die! We can use the insurance money to build your brother a house!

The wind was biting. The drop was high.

Jumping meant freedom.

But just as I leaned forward, a handsome man in gold-rimmed glasses sprinted toward me, grabbing my arm with a grip like iron. The emerald face of his Patek Philippe watch caught the sunlight, blinding me for a second.

He didn't offer platitudes. He offered me a giant, fluffy stick of cotton candy he’d seemingly conjured from nowhere.

His voice was trembling.

"The carnival closes at five," he said. "We can still make it. Will you come with me?"

I sat on a carousel horse, eating that cotton candy bite by bite, sugar melting on my tongue.

I stayed with Sebastian for five years after that.

In a way, he raised the child I never got to be.

...

Sebastian was an easy patron to please.

Emotionally stable, incredibly wealthy, low maintenance.

I didn’t have to worry about student loans or a 9-to-5. All I had to do was focus on him, and the Cartier bracelets and investment accounts piled up.

His upbringing had instilled in him a deep, reflexive gentlemanliness. Even though I was just a plaything, he respected every word I said, every request I made.

Except in bed.

Sebastian’s friends whispered that he’d get bored of me in six months. But year after year, I remained by his side, a fixture in his sprawling estate.

See? Fate hasn’t been entirely cruel to me.

After twenty years of bitterness, it finally gave me a piece of candy.

The staff at the Palisades Estate loved to gossip. She looks just like Miss Madeleine, they’d whisper.

Madeleine Vance. The one who rejected Sebastian’s proposal to pursue her art career in Paris. The ghost of his past.

I didn’t mind looking like Madeleine.

I looked like my brother, too, and my parents didn't give me a scrap of the love they gave him.

But because I looked like Madeleine, Sebastian gave me so much.

I’m easy to satisfy.

I’ve seen the flowers bloom; I don't need to own the garden.