Philippa shrugged off Dorothy's hand, pouting with displeasure.
"I'm not joking. That car of hers has to be worth at least fifty grand, right? And this Louis Vuitton bag—" She clicked her tongue. "Spring collection. That's five or six thousand easy."
"I heard she bought a condo in a top school district downtown. Eighty grand just for the down payment. So tell me—if she's not working as an escort, where's all this money coming from?"
After she finished, the relatives' gazes shifted toward me, layered now with something uglier than curiosity.
My mother's hands trembled so badly she couldn't hold her chopsticks.
"Monica, you always told us that money came from your company. I never thought—"
"Mom, you don't believe me either?"
"You ungrateful girl!" My father's voice cracked like a whip. "You went and did something so shameless—how are we supposed to believe you? When did you become this kind of person?"
Worse than Philippa's lies was the look in my parents' eyes. Their distrust cut deeper than any rumor—a blade aimed straight at the heart.
I let out a slow breath and looked directly at Philippa.
"Philippa, for the sake of family, I'm giving you one chance. Explain yourself to everyone. Otherwise, I'm calling the police."
The moment I mentioned the police, relatives swarmed in from every direction.
"It's New Year's! Calling the cops would be terrible luck. Philippa just wanted to get closer to you—she's just bad at expressing it."
"Exactly! A little teasing keeps things lively. Kids bickering doesn't warrant bringing the police into it."
I didn't agree. I didn't deny it either. Philippa rolled her eyes at me.
"Get closer to her? After what she's done, who knows what kind of diseases she's carrying."
"And I'm not making anything up. I have proof. Go ahead and call the police—I'm not scared."
The moment those words left her mouth, the air in the room seemed to solidify. A silence as heavy as death settled over the table.
Philippa wore an expression of absolute certainty—identical to every other time she'd spread lies about me.
My cousin was three months younger than me. We were family, and we'd been in the same class all through school. By all rights, we should have been close.
But she'd competed with me over everything since we were children. And lost every time.
I was first in our grade. She hovered somewhere in the upper-middle.
I was admitted to an Ivy League school on a full scholarship. She scraped into the same university's worst program by the skin of her teeth.
Growing up, the number of rumors she'd started about me was beyond counting.
A missing eraser? I stole it. Top of the class? I cheated.
When I got into a graduate program, it was because I had something going on with my advisor. When I landed a job at an international firm, it was because of my looks.
Every single time, it ended the same way—Philippa dissolving into tears, sniffling that she'd been wrong, that it was all a misunderstanding—and the whole thing fizzling out into nothing.
The reason behind all of it could be summed up in one word.
Jealousy.
She was jealous that I outshone her at every turn.
But she never looked inward. She never once acknowledged my effort.
She simply believed that if she could drag me down far enough, she'd become the golden child of the family.
I was curious, though. What kind of damning evidence could she possibly have?
I watched her with unhurried calm, tilting my chin slightly—go ahead, show them.
Philippa seemed caught off guard that I hadn't flown into a rage the way I used to. She made a show of reaching for her phone.
But her father—my uncle, Gerald Matthews—caught her wrist.
"That's enough, Philippa. We have a house full of relatives. Do you really have to humiliate your cousin like this?"
"It's nothing to be proud of, and your cousin doesn't even have a boyfriend yet. If you put this out there, how is she supposed to find a husband?"
Gerald's words were dressed up as restraint, but every syllable dripped with encouragement. Between the lines, his eagerness to watch me squirm was barely concealed.
Philippa pushed out her lower lip in a grotesque pout, her face crumpling into wounded innocence.
"It's my big mouth, I know. But I was only looking out for her! Fine, I won't show it. As long as she turns over a new leaf and starts living like a decent person, that's all that matters."
Gerald turned to me, his expression heavy with theatrical anguish. "She's young. Young people make mistakes—what matters is owning up to them and moving on."
