Chapter 2

As if to back up what Candice had said, my mother nodded.

"I knew it yesterday. Candi found the company first, and the loan she took out using your info already came through!"

Candice picked up right where she left off.

"This is to punish your fake modesty! To finally give you a reason to get out there and prove yourself!"

"If you won't compete, you might as well be dead. I can't stand people like you who don't grab a chance when it's handed to them!"

I had nothing to say.

Here we go again.

Candice fought and grabbed for everything, and every single time, I got dragged into it.

And this time was no different. She wanted me at that startup as her backdrop, doing her work for her.

Sure enough, a second later, Candice pulled out the startup's application form again.

"This company pays even interns eight thousand base. If you fill it out now, there's still time!"

"Otherwise, with over half a million in down-payment debt, let's see how you pay it back!"

I drew a slow breath and answered, my patience already thin.

"Who told you I hadn't found a job?"

"I got my offer before Candice did. Do neither of you ever read the group chat?"

Whoever found a job first got the new place. Who wouldn't want that?

I wasn't putting on some fake, holier-than-thou act. I just knew how to read fortune and steer clear of trouble.

I took out my phone and pulled up the offer email.

The company was the classic small-but-good kind. Modest in size, mid-range pay, but genuinely humane in how it treated people.

"I posted it in the group yesterday, Candice. Why are you so set on forcing me into the same company as you?"

"A place that starts you at eight thousand a month and doesn't even interview you. Doesn't that strike you as absurd?"

Candice snatched my phone in an instant, trying to cancel my offer.

"What's so absurd about it? You just think the company isn't famous enough!"

"If I don't keep an eye on you, you'll pull that fake modesty again, tick off your coworkers, and blow every shot at promotion!"

Keep an eye on me. As if. She just wanted to use me to show off how superior she was.

I didn't bother with her. I turned to my mother instead.

"By the rules, the place should be mine now. It was Candice who paid off the loan, wasn't it?"

She was stuck for a moment, then forced the words out.

"Your salary isn't as high as your sister's, and your job isn't as good as hers. The place shouldn't be yours!"

Fine.

Keep piling up wrongs and you dig your own grave.

I couldn't be bothered to argue with them.

It wouldn't be long before Candice found out just how dangerous that garbage job of hers was.

I grabbed my phone back and walked to my room without looking back, leaving the two of them cursing away in the living room.

The next day, I'd barely reached the office when a video call came through from Candice.

She flaunted it to me. "Titles here go by order of hire. The second I walked in, I was made director!"

"You must be dying of jealousy. That company of yours has no future to speak of anyway!"

I didn't answer her. I just put my head down and worked.

On the side, I'd found a lawyer, getting ready to challenge the half million my mother had borrowed in my name, without my consent, off some shady website.

But something kept gnawing at me.

The reading came out the same. Today's fortune was a bad draw.

Sure enough, at five that afternoon, my boss called me into his office.

His brow was tight, and he let out a helpless sigh.

He turned the computer toward me.

Someone had sent him a report email.

It said I had a bad reputation on campus, that I was lazy and negative, and that I'd even been written up for theft.

It said if he didn't fire me, they'd post online that the company had hired an employee with such rotten character.

Even chanting go with the flow in my head, I couldn't keep the anger from flaring.

This was obviously Candice stirring up trouble again.

The theft was hers. To pad her grades and her GPA, she'd stolen the school's exam papers.

Then, when it came out, she'd pinned it on me.

Because the two of us looked alike, and because my mother had chimed in to say I'd had a habit of stealing since I was little.

So the advisor slapped a formal write-up straight onto my record.

My boss spread his hands, helpless, and I told him I understood.

The moment I got home, I meant to confront Candice with the termination notice in hand.

Instead, I saw her arm in a cast.