Chapter 5

The third time I caught Camille humming, I knew something was wrong.

She twirled the end of her platinum ponytail, scrolling through her phone at the kitchen table, a ghost of a smile playing on her lips. Two days since the disciplinary committee suspended Élise. Two days since my sister got exactly what she'd claimed she wanted.

"Shouldn't you be, I don't know, guilty?" I leaned against the counter, arms crossed.

Camille's smile didn't waver. "Why? I told the truth."

"Did you?" I studied her. "You've been weirdly happy. You hate talking about the hearing. And every time I bring up the photo, you change the subject."

She rolled her eyes. "Nathan, drop it."

I didn't. I went to her room instead.

The torn photograph lay crumpled in her wastebasket, beneath a discarded face mask. The same photo—my study notes, the circled answers. But flipped over, in my sister's handwriting: *Tuesday, 3:47 PM.*

The exam ended at 2:00.

My hands shook. This wasn't evidence of Élise's guilt. This was evidence of my sister's crime.

I found her in the hallway, and I didn't let her run. "The timestamp, Camille. The photo was taken *after* the exam."

Her face crumpled—not with guilt, but with something rawer. Tears spilled down her cheeks, mascara streaking like black rain.

"You don't understand." Her voice cracked. "Every grade, every award, every dinner—'Élise did better, Camille, why can't you be like her? Why can't you try harder?'" She grabbed my arm, nails biting. "I'm so tired, Nathan. I'm so tired of being second. Of being *nothing*."

And there it was—the knife twisting in my chest. The memory of our parents' screaming, the slammed doors, the years I'd spent telling her *I've got you*. I'd been at parties, not at home. I'd let her drown alone.

"Tell me you forgive me," she whispered, her hand tightening. "Tell me you understand."

I looked at the photo in my hand. At my sister's desperate face. At the truth I'd finally found.

"I understand," I said slowly. "But I can't forgive you. Not yet."

Her face went blank. Then she laughed—a hollow, broken sound. "So what now? You turn me in?"

The rain started again. I could hear it against the window, like a verdict falling.

"Tell me the truth," I said. "Or I will."

Can you forgive a sibling who did something unforgivable out of pain?