The Daughter They Left in the Snow

To save my mother, my mind stayed five forever. But my sister’s fake sneeze mattered more than my life. In the ER, freezing, my parents took my only hot water bottle for her hands. When my feet bled in broken shoes, they bought her a crystal crown.That winter, I blackened my face on the family portrait and walked into the snowstorm. I never came back. My parents lost everything searching for my body in the snow.