100-word description of the story: Mirabel is the second of five children, raised alongside her cousin Trisha in a household where love felt conditional and comparison constant. Called "useless" by a mother who preferred Trisha's ease, Mirabel found her only refuge in quiet trips to the eye clinic and library with her father. At ten, she glimpsed a boy named James at her sister's wedding. Sent to live with relatives at fourteen, she endured cruelty, abuse, and five suicide attempts in near-total isolation. Years later, reunited with James, she discovered — through a solemn teenage promise — what it meant to be chosen rather than merely tolerated, and finally began to heal.