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The smile froze on my mother's face.
"Tilda Simmons! Have you no shame at all!"
She hurled the phone straight into my face.
The sharp corner opened a thin line of blood across my cheek.
"Over some hollow name-brand college vanity, you won't even give an inch for your own sister."
"Your father and I raised you all these years for nothing!"
My father's face went hard too, his voice thick with disappointment.
"Eighteen years of raising you, and this is the stone-cold heart we get."
He jabbed a finger at the door and barked,
"Get out!"
"Since your wings are strong enough now, don't set one foot back inside this house again!"
Rosamund nestled into the couch, a smug little smile she couldn't hide tugging at her lips.
She had always loved watching me get scolded, watching me forced to cave.
I kept my eyes down. The ache in my chest had long since gone numb.
For as long as I could remember, I'd heard this kind of blind, twisted scolding until it was worn smooth.
"Fine. I'll go."
I answered quietly, dragging my suitcase around toward the door.
But then my mother let out a cold laugh.
"Since you won't step aside for Rosamund."
"Then let's settle the whole account."
I turned back and stared at her, dead inside.
"From the moment you were born. Eighteen years."
"Every breath of air you've taken in the Simmons house gets a charge on it."
My mother's voice didn't hold a trace of warmth.
"Paid in full, all at once. One hundred thousand."
A hundred thousand!
Two light little words, slammed down hard on my already broken heart.
My throat ached. "Breathing. You're charging me for breathing?"
"What else?"
She said it like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Nothing in this house is free. What makes you think you get to breathe for eighteen years for nothing?"
"If you don't want to go to community college with Rosamund, then pay the hundred thousand in full."
My father cut in beside her, his voice unyielding.
"We fed you, gave you a roof, all these years. Is a hundred thousand really too much to ask?"
"This is your last chance. Don't be an ungrateful little brat about it."
I looked at the two cold, heartless people in front of me.
The last small flame of family feeling in my chest went out completely.
So this was what I was in this house.
Even being alive was a debt I had to work off.
"I don't have the money."
My voice came out hoarse.
"No money?"
My mother scoffed and pulled out a contract.
"Then sign an IOU."
"At the bank's highest interest rate. Paid off within one year."
She kept her eyes locked on my face the whole time she spoke, like she was waiting for something.
I didn't cry. I didn't argue.
I pressed every ounce of hurt and injustice down and held it there.
I silently took the pen she held out and signed my name.
"Miss the deadline, and I take you straight to court."
Her stare was ice-cold, cutting.
"I'll put a default on your record. Then good luck ever getting a job!"
"Fine."
I turned and walked toward the door.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught my mother making an online payment.
Using the three thousand I'd just transferred to buy Rosamund a pair of gold earrings.
"A coming-of-age gift for my precious daughter."
"Whatever other people's kids have, my daughter gets to have too."
I looked down at my shoes, already worn through, and my patched old school uniform.
My mouth went bitter.
Same blood. Same flesh and bone.
My sister was the treasure.
And I was the outsider who had to pay for the air she breathed.
To clear that sky-high IOU, and scrape together the tuition for Ridgemont, I found a restaurant that came with meals and a bed, and took a part-time job.
Waiting tables, washing dishes, hauling out the trash, working until my back wouldn't straighten and I still didn't dare stop.
Then, out of nowhere, a gentle figure caught hold of me.
"Tilda?"
It was Jude Delgado.
Something in my chest warmed, and the weight of those endless days eased for a moment.
Jude was the reason I'd been able to grit my teeth and keep going.
Three years of high school.
He would slip bread into my bag when no one was looking, would step in front of me and drive off the classmates who bullied me.
Would crouch in the blazing sun collecting plastic bottles with me, would get me through the most humiliating stretch of my life.
We'd promised each other long ago that we'd test into Ridgemont together.
Start college side by side.
And now it was finally about to come true.
His eyes softened on me, his voice full of ache.
"I heard you're... staying in some temporary dorm?"
"It's a rough crowd around here. You need to be careful."
"Leave your things at my place for now."
His gaze was earnest. "It'd be a real mess if your acceptance letter got lost."
I was so grateful I nearly cried.
"Thank you, Jude."
He smiled gently. "Don't worry. I've got everything handled."
That night, I collapsed onto the hard board bed in the dorm.
Then my phone buzzed.
It was a post from Rosamund.
In the picture, she was editing something in the college application field.
And in her hand was my ID!
The caption was gloating and smug.
【The valedictorian's my little maid now. This is the kind of clout a girl like me pulls.】
Below it, Jude had commented: 【Whatever my baby wants, my baby gets.】
I felt like I'd been dropped into ice, shaking all over.
