No One Came Chapter 02
The pain, the suffocation—it was all gone.
I floated beneath the ceiling, looking down at myself on the bed.
My head was tilted to one side.
My face was horribly swollen.
My lips had turned purple.
My arms were covered in red hives.
My phone had fallen onto the carpet, its screen still glowing.
The last Google search was:
“first aid for anaphylactic shock”
I floated out of my room, right through the door that was always closed—the door no one ever really knocked on.
In the living room, Mom sat on the sofa, scrolling through Instagram.
Half-eaten dinner plates sat on the coffee table.
Roast chicken, pasta, salad.
There was still a plate at my usual spot.
Mom hadn’t cleared it.
The fork was still resting beside the plate.
She didn’t know I would never eat that dinner.
Dad sat beside her, watching the sports channel.
The TV commentator was shouting; his team must have just scored.
“Adriana still hasn’t come out?”
Dad asked casually, his eyes fixed on the screen.
“Leave her alone. She’s just being difficult.”
Mom stared at her phone, her thumb flicking upward again and again.
“Nico barely teased her. Does she have to be so dramatic?”
“But she’s allergic. You know that,” Dad said flatly.
There was no concern in his voice. No urgency.
“How serious can an allergy be? It’s not like she was poisoned.”
Mom frowned.
“She’s been like this since she was a kid. The second something doesn’t go her way, she locks herself in her room and turns it into this whole big drama.”
“Look at Nico—he’s so easygoing. But the second she gets upset, the entire family has to walk on eggshells.”
Listening to them, I just felt a wave of bitter absurdity.
There was nothing easygoing about Nico scrubbing the toilet with my toothbrush.
Or the time he shut off the hot water while I was in the shower, leaving me to scream under an icy spray in the middle of winter. He’d just laughed.
In that house, I had always lived on edge.
He never had to worry about consequences, because Mom and Dad always believed him over me.
“Fine. I’ll go check on her.”
Mom finally put down her phone and pushed herself off the sofa.
I followed her to my bedroom door.
My room was dark. The curtains were still drawn.
She pushed the door open just a crack and peered in at the figure curled up on the bed.
“Adriana, are you eating or not?”
Of course, I didn’t move.
I was already dead.
“Alright, stop the theatrics.”
Mom’s patience was clearly wearing thin.
“If you don’t eat, I’m throwing it out. Don’t come crying to me for food in the middle of the night.”
She waited a few seconds.
No reaction from the bed.
“What a headache.”
She slammed the door and turned away.
She didn’t come in.
She didn’t turn on the light.
She didn’t get any closer.
If she’d just taken a few more steps inside, she would have seen my purple lips.
She would have felt how cold my hand had become.
But she didn’t.
She just stood in the doorway, said her piece, and left.
I floated in the hall, staring at the closed door.
“Mom, why hasn’t she come out yet?”
Nico asked, finishing the last bite of roast chicken, his mouth greasy.
He glanced toward my end of the hall.
“Who knows with her. Throwing another tantrum.”
Mom started clearing the plates.
She scraped the leftovers into the trash can.
When she picked up my plate, she paused, then scraped it into the trash with the rest.
“She’s mad again?”
Nico sounded a little uneasy.
But only a little.
“I barely put any peanut sauce on her plate. Did she have to overreact like that?”
“You know she’s allergic to peanuts.”
Mom stacked the plates and carried them to the kitchen.
“Don’t do it again.”
That was it.
Nothing more.
No punishment. Not even a, *You could have killed your sister.* Just a single, dismissive line: “Don’t do it again.”
I watched from the sidelines.
I didn’t have a heartbeat anymore, but my chest still ached.