I am Ava Reynolds, twenty-nine years old, and three days ago, my family formally requested that I cease to exist.
“You’ll just make everyone uncomfortable,” my mother had said, her voice smooth, polished, and final, the same tone she used to decline a caterer who didn’t meet the Greenwich standard. “It’s better if you don’t come to New Year’s Eve.” So, I spent the dying hours of December 31st, 2024, alone in my five-hundred-square-foot studio apartment in Cambridge. The heating unit rattled in the corner, a stark contrast to the crystal-and-mahogany silence of the Reynolds estate. Through my frosted window, I watched strangers on the street below—couples huddled in coats, groups of students passing bottles of cheap wine—celebrating the passage of time. Meanwhile, two hours south in Connecticut, my family was toasting champagne in a mansion with actual Doric columns, relieved that their “difficult” daughter wasn’t there to ruin the aesthetic.
At exactly 12:01 a.m., the silence of my apartment was shattered.
My phone vibrated against the coffee table, a violent, angry buzz. The caller ID flashed: LUCAS.
I let it ring three times. On the fourth, I picked up.
“Ava?” His voice, usually so effortlessly charming, was trembling. In the background, I could hear a cacophony—shattered glass, raised voices, the shrill edge of hysteria. “Ava, what did you do? Dad just saw the news and he’s… he’s not breathing right. Mom is screaming. What the hell did you do?”
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