1: 1
The SATs were over, and Mom bought my little sister a new phone.
She hugged Rosamund tight, eyes rimmed red.
"My precious girl. You've finally made it through."
Dad gave her a motorbike, waving a hand grandly.
"Once you're in college, you can go wherever you want."
Then it was my turn, dragging my heavy bags in, and Mom held out the QR code like it was business.
"Baggage hauling fee, five hundred. Storage fee, five hundred."
"And from now until you leave for college, room and board here, two thousand."
"Three thousand total. Scan to pay, or sign an IOU?"
...
Head down, I quietly took out my phone and scanned it, the way I always had.
Since I was little, Mom and Dad had raised me and my sister as a control group.
Rosamund got the lift-her-up treatment.
Endless new clothes, more allowance than she could ever spend.
Private school her whole life.
I got the independence treatment.
For as long as I could remember, I'd been signing IOUs every day.
Room fees, food fees, water and electricity fees.
Every day, Mom itemized everything connected to me into a bill.
And I paid my debts by scavenging trash to sell.
"Any charges left unsettled that day become an IOU, with interest deducted at the bank rate."
"Overdue debt means losing the right to stay in this house and your food guarantee."
At five, I couldn't haul enough trash, and I came up thirty dollars short.
Mom smashed my rice bowl and dumped my food into the garbage right in front of me.
Then she threw me, crying and screaming, out of the house.
I slept the night under a bridge.
And watched my parents drop a million dollars to rent out an entire amusement park.
For my sister's birthday.
At seven, to save up for tuition, I went to school and scrounged for bottles at the same time, wearing myself out.
I got so hungry my blood sugar crashed and I collapsed in the street.
But when Mom finally showed up, her face was cold.
"Sign the IOU for the medical bill first. Then you can get in the ambulance."
At nine, the school held a parents' meeting.
Mom and Dad crowded around my sister.
And I kept my head down, holding back tears, while classmates sneered that I was a mongrel nobody wanted.
My mom said, flat and cold,
"Attending a parents' meeting is a hire contract. I charge by the minute."
I cried and got down on my knees to my classmates, borrowing money from anyone I could.
Just so Mom would sit in my classroom with me for one minute.
But she took the loose change I'd gathered in my hands and bought my sister an ice cream bar.
Then she rounded on me, furious.
"Can't you see Rosamund's sweating in the heat? What kind of big sister are you?"
"All you think about is your own vanity, you don't even care whether your family lives or dies. You're an ungrateful little wretch."
Then her voice turned businesslike.
"You don't have enough commission right now. I can't accept your hire."
After that.
I never again talked back to my classmates' mockery.
All these years, whenever I called out how unfair it was.
Mom and Dad would scold me like I was a hopeless disappointment.
"You ungrateful thing. Who do you think we're keeping these accounts for, day after day, working ourselves to the bone?"
"It's all to raise you to be independent! Learn now how hard money is to earn, and you'll take fewer wrong turns later."
"Otherwise, once you're out in the world, no one's going to coddle you."
I heard it so many times that I stopped expecting anything at all.
And just as I numbly pulled out my phone to pay.
My mother changed course.
"If you give up Ridgemont and go to community college with your sister, you don't have to pay today."
She scooped Rosamund up, doting, her voice soft.
"Rosamund is our pampered treasure. She's not some thick-skinned dirt-poor thing like you."
"Studying somewhere unfamiliar, all on her own, she needs someone to look after her."
"Go with her to community college and I'll give you three hundred a month for living expenses, plus another two hundred as a nanny fee."
Beside her, my sister smiled, pleased with herself.
"Tilda Simmons, you'd better treasure this chance."
"Five hundred is more than you'd earn scavenging bottles for a whole month."
I lowered my eyes, something bitter turning in me.
"But I scored a 709. I'm the top scorer."
"I don't want to go to community college."
My dad's face darkened, and he said sternly,
"A high score doesn't make a person worth anything."
"Comparing yourself to others, chasing vanity at your age. What does that look like?"
"Go to community college and taste what life is like at the bottom. It'll temper your will! That's how you'll go further out in the world."
I looked at them, and all at once my heart went cold to the bottom.
I was their real daughter too.
Why could everyone only ever see Rosamund Simmons?
While I was the one who could be sacrificed at any moment, everything of mine.
My mother met my dead, empty stare, and guilt flickered across her face for a second.
Then she hardened again.
"What's with that long face, who's it for? So a big sister looks after her little sister, what's wrong with that?"
"It's what you're supposed to do anyway, and now you even get paid for it. What have you got to complain about?"
"Change your college choice right now. Don't take the deal and act put-upon, or you can hand me that three thousand."
My sister smiled wider, feigning envy.
"You're so lucky, sis. Change a few little words and it turns into money to spend."
"Not like me. After I graduate I'll still have to find a job and earn my own money."
The moment my mom heard that, her face filled with tenderness.
"Silly girl, this family can afford to keep you comfortable your whole life."
My dad transferred over fifty thousand dollars on the spot.
"Take it, spend it. Tell Dad if it's not enough."
"A girl's greatest security is being raised rich with a safety net under her. Only workhorses have to go looking for their own grass to eat."
Something ached in me.
So it turned out they knew perfectly well how to love a child. They just didn't love me.
"Hurry up and change it. We're taking your sister shopping, don't waste our time."
My mom nagged at me, out of patience.
"Dragging your feet at everything, making the whole family wait on you alone. You really are a lost cause."
But in the next second, my fingers moved.
Her phone chimed with a transfer notification.
【Ding! $3,000 received.】
I wasn't going to change my college choice. And I didn't want this family anymore.
