The more I think about it the more I think Ella got the worst deal in MR.
Growing up for twelve years in the Arizona suburbs, with a mom who’s perfectly normal, if not a little sad at times, until some girl shows up on her front porch. She looks a bit like Ella, except she has wings, and she’s hurt, and she has people to get back to.
And then Ella learns that she’s her sister.
Her perfectly normal mother made a choice when she was younger, and that choice created Max, and Max was sold off to a shadowy company that made her life a living hell. And less than two years later, Ella was born. And Ella’s not dumb, she can do the math on how long it took to make that choice, and how it shifts her existence from “beloved only daughter” to “replacement for mother’s biggest regret”. It explains the way her mom would look at her sometimes, when she thought Ella wouldn’t notice. Like she was looking for someone else under her skin.
So Ella has a sister, now. And everyone in the house gets along, which is great, except that Valencia keeps leaving with Max on trips, keeps leaving with Jeb on trips, because Jeb is the other half of the equation for Max and that means something, even though Ella’s never met her own father. Ella is the normal one, the simple one, the one who isn’t saving the world and doesn’t need the support that Max does, with her years of trauma. And Max loves Ella too, but not as much as she loves her other family, because she CANNOT love Ella like the family she bled and suffered for.
And she knows it’s not Max’s fault, that her priorities will never be her flesh and blood sister. She knows this was put in place long before Ella was born, and maybe it wasn’t even her mom’s fault, either, because she’s so goddamn HAPPY now that she has a “complete family”. Maybe if Ella has wings, it would be different, or maybe it would be the exact same.
She gets a boyfriend with wings, though. That’s pretty cool, except his loyalties are also to his flock, and he can only love her as much as he knows, and she’s not stupid, she knows who she’s dating, that there’s a list on his head of who’d he be willing to hurt to preserve his family, and she’s on it.
And that’s her lot: the replacement for a mistake, the legacy of someone’s failures with their first daughter. She can’t really complain about it, because she loves her mom, who tries her best and is trying her best. She loves her sister, too. But she’s never been accused of being oblivious, and this is no exception.
And then she fucking dies.
