I Gave Away the Birthday Chocolates, Then the Screaming Started

By the time the fifth call came in, I was sitting on my couch in my tiny downtown Columbus apartment, bare feet tucked under me on a secondhand rug, watching my phone light up like it was trying to warn me about something.

Dad.

Then Evelyn.

Then my older sister, Melissa.

All of them asking the same question. All of them sounding wrong in a way that made the fine hairs on my arms stand up.

“Did you eat any of the chocolates?” Dad asked, his voice thin and frayed like it might snap.

“How much did you eat?” Evelyn demanded, skipping hello entirely.

“Tell me you tasted at least one,” Melissa said, already crying, her breath hitching like she was running.

I laughed at first, because I thought they were being dramatic about sugar, calories, blood pressure. Rich-people panic. It had that tone: urgent, overblown, performative.

“No,” I said, the same answer every time. “I dropped the whole box off in Dublin. Brandon and the kids tore into it the second I put it down. They loved it.”

Every time I said it, the air on the other end went dead and strange, like someone had just walked into a funeral wearing a marching band uniform.