Chapter 3

3: 3

The banquet hall was dazzling.

Balloons drifted across the whole ceiling, every one of them printed with Cynthia Henson's name.

It made the sheet of A4 paper I'd written out by hand look like a joke.

I stood frozen at the door, alone.

Everything inside was warm and loud, and none of it had room for me.

The tears came without warning.

Why?

We were both his daughters. Why did my sister get to stand in the middle of all that attention,

while I was the clown who wasn't fit to be seen?

I wanted to storm in and scream, to accuse them of everything.

Then my phone lit up.

It was Mom.

【You look too cheap. Don't come in and embarrass Cynthia.】

【Go eat your own party out there and stop making trouble.】

【You're the older sister. Act like it.】

Just a few short lines, and the last bit of warmth left in me went out for good.

Stiffly, I moved back to the little table in the hallway.

I reached out, grabbed the food, and shoved it into my mouth, numb.

Chew, swallow.

The same mechanical motions, over and over, and my tongue couldn't taste a thing.

"It's fine. Mom and Dad still love me."

"It's fine. My table's just a little smaller, that's all."

"It's fine. I'm the older sister. I should know better..."

But somehow the tears kept coming, more and more.

I swallowed them down one by one.

They were bitter.

Every waiter who passed shot me a look of disgust.

"Where'd this little beggar come from? Eating like she's starving to death."

"No shame at all. Who crashes someone else's graduation party?"

Each sneer went in like a needle, straight into my ears.

I couldn't hold on any longer. I stood and stumbled away.

But two steps in, everything went black.

My throat closed up like something was stuck in it, and I couldn't breathe.

Only then did it hit me. There'd been mango in the food I'd just eaten.

I was allergic.

"Dad... Mom..."

On instinct I turned to my parents for help.

But my mother just put a hand on her hip and sneered.

"We just made you eat outside, and now you're playing sick?"

"Can't you go one day without stirring things up? Will you only be happy once you've driven your sister into the ground?"

My father barked at me,

"If you don't want a graduation party, then get lost. Nobody's begging you to eat."

They pulled the banquet hall doors shut, hard.

The next instant, I collapsed to the floor.

When I came to, I was in a hospital.

I opened my eyes in a daze and heard my mother's voice.

Her tone was shrill, thoroughly irritated.

"What is Alexandra even trying to do? All she does is cause trouble for this family!"

"She ruined a perfectly good party, and Cynthia was upset the whole day because of it!"

My father's voice was cold and disappointed. "So she ate a few bites of mango. Does that really warrant all this drama?"

"I think she's faking it on purpose. She just wants attention."

"The food at her table was Cynthia's leftovers anyway, and Cynthia ate plenty of it and was perfectly fine."

My heart clenched again.

No wonder the portions had looked so small...

So even my graduation party had been secondhand.

I kept my eyes shut and forced myself to look asleep, but the tears wouldn't stop pouring out.

For the whole week that followed, no one came to see me.

Not a single phone call.

And then, on my sister's feed, I saw the four of them on vacation abroad.

So it wasn't that they'd been too busy.

They just weren't willing to spare me even a sliver of care.

The day I was discharged,

I handled the paperwork alone and took a cab home.

I dragged the old suitcase out from under my bed.

Since there was no place for me in this family, I wouldn't be in their way any longer.

I packed, and a bitter smile came with it.

Eighteen years of living, and apart from a pile of hand-me-downs, the things that were actually mine barely filled half a case.

Once everything was packed, I opened my phone and entered Clearwood University as my choice.

More than a thousand miles from this house.

I would never see them again.

And just as I'd booked my ticket and was about to leave for the train station,

the door was kicked open.