Page 56 of What Goes Around

Jackpot: $99,000,000.

I remembered this exact drawing from my first life. Apple had gone on one of her dramatic online rants about it. Something about fate. About how the winning numbers matched her birthdate and how the winner “owed her half for the cosmic coincidence.”

Or something equally ridiculous.

But the numbers had stuck.

Burned into my memory.

18 — 1 — 20 — 2 — 48 — 6

January 18, 2002 at 6:48 AM.

I couldn’t help the little smile tugging at my mouth as I stepped into the store. I bought a single ticket and chose those exact numbers.

Poetic justice, really.

I folded the ticket carefully, tucked it into the hidden lining of my backpack, and zipped it shut.

That night, the drawing results were exactly what I already knew. I won half the prize. Almost fifty million dollars.

I wasn’t cashing it yet.

Not until I turned eighteen in five months. Just long enough to keep my parents’ hands off a single cent.

And after graduation…

I could leave.

Cut them off.

Start over.

Money solved a lot of things.

But it couldn’t give me the answers I needed.

Lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, my thoughts drifted to Mom.

Her sharp glances. Her constant irritation. The way everything about me seemed to bother her.

The way she always chose Apple.

And then, like a whisper from another life, Apple’s voice surfaced in my mind.

“You know she never loved you, right? No matter what you did, she never would. Have you really never wondered why?”

I had wondered.

I’d just never had the courage to look closely.

But now I did.

Mom and Apple shared the same warm brown hair; Dad’s was sandy blond. My own was pale blonde, almost silver in a certain light.

Their eyes matched too: that light brownish-green hue, almost hazel. Mine were the same blue as Dad’s, the same shape even.

They were short and soft-bodied.