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WHAT SUCKED THE MOST WAS that I, Francesca Rossi, had my entire future locked inside an unremarkable old wooden box

Since the day I’d been made aware of it—at six years old—I knew that whatever waited forto either kill or save me So it was no wonder that yesterday at dahen the sun kissed the sky, I decided to rush fate and open it

I wasn’t supposed to knohere my mother kept the key

I wasn’t supposed to knohere my father kept the box

But the thing about sitting at ho yourself to death so you could meet your parents’ next-to-impossible standards? You have time—in spades

“Hold still, Francesca, or I’ll prick you with the needle,” Veronica whined underneath me

My eyes ran across the yellow note for the hundredth tiet into my dress as if I was an invalid I inked the words tothem in a drawer in my brain no one else had access to

Exciteing with determination in the mirror in front of ers and shoved it into the cleavage under my unlaced corset

I started pacing in the roo Mama’s hairdresser and stylist bark atroom comically

I am Groucho Marx in Duck Soup Catch me if you can

Veronica tugged at the end ofme back to the mirror as if I were on a leash

“Hey, ouch” I winced