Chapter 3

3: 3

I froze on the spot, a buzzing filling my ears.

"Mom, what did you say?"

She looked me up and down from where she stood over me.

"I said, thank God your sister isn't like you, learning to butter up men that young—"

"Mom!"

The blood in my veins turned to ice. I screamed, my voice shaking.

"I didn't ask for it! That was all a lie. I was the one who got hurt!"

The summer I was eighteen was one long stretch of darkness.

Mom was off working down south back then. My sister was still little. I lived with Grandma.

Everyone in the village knew everyone, and sometimes things got ugly.

That day I'd just come home from school, and an old man had followed me toward the outhouse at the edge of the village.

My head ached from reciting for exams, and I didn't notice a thing. Not until...

Grandma found me first. Thank God there was still time to stop it.

It blew up big. Half the village crowded around, and Grandma nearly beat that old man to death.

Mom rushed back that night. The first thing she said was this:

"We can't let this get out."

"Maisie's a lost cause, but Cecily's still young. I won't have people thinking every daughter in this family has something wrong with her, that we raise loose girls."

For all these years, no one brought it up again.

I hadn't understood what she meant back then. Now it hit me all at once.

In her eyes I was already dirty, and she couldn't let that dirt splash onto my sister, Cecily Swanson.

But I was the victim. I was.

"Mom, how can you be this cruel..."

When I tried to speak again, I realized I'd been crying the whole time.

I forced the tears away and fought to stay calm.

"He's just a male coworker. I'm not as shameless as you think. The dinner tonight was only a send-off because I'm quitting."

The second she heard that, she panicked.

"Quitting? No way!"

"If you quit, what happens to your sister? I won't allow it!"

The prying looks around us, there and not there, stung something raw in my chest.

I dragged out a cold smile.

"I'm not Cecily's mother. What does she have to do with me?"

That one line froze her face over.

From that day on, she never said another word to me.

The house turned strange and silent.

Even my sister, who never noticed anything, could feel something was off.

She picked her moment and cornered me at my bedroom door, starting in on her peacemaking again.

"Sis, we're family. Is there anything we can't sit down and talk through?"

She had a slight frown.

Sometimes I couldn't help thinking about it: Mom had protected her too well.

So she couldn't see the currents running dark under this family.

"Think about it. If you quit, how are you going to live? Mom's only doing this for your own good."

I couldn't help but laugh.

"And what about you? You graduated months ago. How come Mom never says a word to you?"

For a second, Cecily's face went blank.

"I..."

She knew she didn't have to worry about any of it.

Because Mom had already had the will notarized long ago. All her money was going to Cecily.

In that instant, a flood of hatred and jealousy crawled up through my blood.

Why did she get to have it so easy?

Why was I the one nobody loved?

An old memory surfaced without warning, and the words came out before I could stop them.

"Cecily, you know, at first Mom wanted to abort you. You were never supposed to be born at all."

My sister went white as a sheet.

"What..."

Then I heard the rush of air by my ear.

A hard slap landed across my face with a crack.

"Maisie Swanson, keep it up and I'll rip that mouth of yours to shreds!"