The chandeliers glittered above the ballroom as two hundred guests turned to stare. I sat in my wheelchair at the center of it all, a gray blanket over my knees, and said nothing.
“Look at you,” Vanessa sneered, leaning close enough for me to smell the wine on her breath. “You are nothing now. Just a useless burden.”
A few people gasped. My uncle looked away. My best friend lowered his eyes. Nobody said a word to defend me.
Nobody except Clara, the quiet maid who had worked in our house for three years. She knelt beside me, straightened the blanket Vanessa had kicked aside, and whispered, “You still deserve to be treated kindly.”
That was the moment I understood. The accident had not broken me. It had revealed them.
