My name is Emily Hart, and on the night my younger sister graduated from law school, she tried to humiliate and destroy me in front of an entire crowd.

I was sitting near the edge of the lawn in my navy wheelchair, wearing a pale blue dress I had saved up for months to buy, when Lauren raised her champagne glass and accused me—loudly—of pretending to be paralyzed just to gain sympathy.

At first, people laughed, thinking it was some kind of joke. But she didn’t stop. She went on to say that doctors believed I could recover someday, but I enjoyed the attention too much to try. According to her, my wheelchair had become my identity. I could feel every pair of eyes turning toward me.

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