One Year to Live: I Traded My Toxic Family for Global Fame novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Door
Tegan wakes on the morning she was meant to give up her show spot, a year before she dies, and refuses her family to their faces. She walks out. Her brother promises she will never work again.
Tegan Stegman woke with her fingers dug into the sheets and her lungs burning.
She was not in the warehouse.
There was no cold concrete under her and no blood in her mouth.
There was a cream rug, a velvet stool and the ridiculous chandelier her mother had insisted on.
She had died on a wet floor a year from now, and she remembered every minute of it.
She breathed in and out until her heart slowed.
Then she picked up the phone on the marble nightstand and looked at the date.
March 2.
The men in the warehouse had checked a watch and said that date out loud.
It was a year from now, and she had exactly one year.
Tegan smiled at the screen.
Three hard knocks hit the bedroom door.
She knew who it was.
She took her time stretching her shoulders before she opened it.
Corbin Stegman stood in the hallway with his suit jacket over one arm and his tie knotted perfectly.
He was her second older brother, and he was also her manager.
"I've been calling you all morning," he said. "Why didn't you pick up?"
"Didn't feel like it."
His brow pulled together, and he pushed a hand through his styled hair.
"Can you cut it out? Just once."
"That line is old, Corbin," Tegan said. "You still get a thrill saying it, but I'm tired of hearing it."
Corbin's mouth hardened.
"Is it your mission in life to be this difficult? Camille only wants that spot on the show. Would it kill you to back off?"
Tegan stepped out of the doorway until she was an arm's length from him.
"I earned that spot."
"You earned it?" He laughed once. "We are a family. Camille's popularity is surging, and this show could make her an A-lister."
"And?"
"And you're still building your foundation. I'm telling you to step down."
Tegan looked at the man who shared her blood.
For a year, Corbin had given Camille the good scripts and Tegan the rejected pages.
Then a director had handed Tegan the lead of The Long Trail, a live-streamed survival series that ran for twelve months.
The contract was in her own name.
Camille had heard about it within a day.
"I'm done discussing it," Tegan said, and she started down the stairs.
Corbin followed her to the dining room.
The breakfast table was laid for four.
Her mother, Rosalyn, sat in a cream cardigan with her pearls on.
Luther, the eldest brother, sat at the head of the table with a tablet.
Camille sat across from the empty chair, already crying.
"Birdie," Camille said. "Please don't be angry. I would never ask if I didn't need this."
Birdie had been Tegan's baby name, and the family had given it to Camille when she was five.
"Sit down, Tegan," Luther said without looking up. "Don't be difficult."
Her mother and her five brothers had used those three words since the day the family brought her home.
They used them to shut her up and to put her back in her place.
"I'm not handing over the spot," Tegan said.
Rosalyn put down her cup. "After everything this family has done to bring you back?"
Everything meant a guest room and a chandelier.
Nobody in the house had ever asked where she had been between the ages of six and twenty-seven.
"I'm not giving up the spot," Tegan said again.
Camille wiped her cheek and smiled through the tears, small and brave.
"Then promise me something instead," she said. "Promise you'll come to the wrap party next March, even if the show is mine."
The table went quiet.
Camille's eyes stayed on Tegan's face a beat too long.
"You're not getting the show," Tegan said.
Luther set his tablet down. "She'll sign the transfer by Friday. Corbin, draw it up."
Tegan pulled her old duffel bag out from under the hall bench.
She put the car key on the table next to her mother's plate.
"The car is an agency lease," she said. "Keep it."
"Where do you think you're going?" Corbin asked.
"Out."
He caught her at the front door, and his voice dropped.
"Walk out that door and I will make sure nobody in this city ever hires you."
Tegan looked at the brother who, in a year, would point the rescue team at someone else.
"You already tried that for a year," she said.
So she stepped out.
She was at the bottom of the driveway when her phone buzzed.
It was the show's production office.
"Ms. Stegman, Stegman Entertainment has put a flag on your contract. Cal Merrick, our field lead, says to call us before you do anything else."
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