Not until morning, when Nicholas kicked me awake.
"Clara, did you really sleep out here all night? I figured you'd crashed at a classmate's place."
"How can one person be this dense? If you couldn't get in, why didn't you just call me?"
"I did. You were too busy playing games with Pat to pick up."
Nicholas paused, then frowned and reached down to haul me up.
My legs had gone numb. I couldn't stand.
I pitched straight into his arms.
His body went stiff, the tips of his ears flushing red.
His expression had only just softened when Pat's voice drifted out from inside.
"Sis, you're back. Come in and eat."
"Mom just boiled some shrimp."
The second he heard that, Nicholas shoved me away and hurried back to Pat's side.
"The bowls are too hot. Leave them, I've got it. You just sit and eat."
Five people, four stools.
In this house, it seemed there had never been a place for me.
Mom froze for a moment, then gave an awkward excuse.
"You never eat on time anyway. We're used to it."
It wasn't that I didn't eat on time. It was that Nicholas and the others finished their homework so fast.
By the time I'd worked through the last big problem, all that was left on the table were cold scraps and a pile of dishes to wash.
Nicholas pulled out the stool for Pat, then set the whole plate of shrimp down in front of me.
"You've got nothing better to do, so go help Pat peel these in the kitchen."
"People with bad grades should at least be good with their hands. Handy for waiting tables at a restaurant someday."
Pat let out a giggle.
"Nicholas, don't be mean. My sister isn't as useless as you make her sound."
"Her math is terrible, sure, but she could still manage as a cashier. Stop bossing her around all the time."
Nicholas didn't even look up.
"No need to feel sorry for her. She's used to all this from her days out in the country. She's not that delicate."
The country was hard. Money was tight, and Grandma was getting old.
I'd been helping with the laundry and the cooking since I was very small.
The stove was too high. I couldn't reach.
Every time smoke rose from a kitchen fire in our house, Nicholas, who lived at the east end of the village, would carry a stool over to help me.
He never tired of telling me the same thing.
"You've got me. What's there to be scared of?"
"I'd never let you go hungry."
Later, Grandma passed away.
Nicholas came with me all the way from the country to the city, and moved into my family's home.
We were closer now, physically, than we'd ever been.
Yet our hearts seemed to drift further and further apart.
A whole night in the cold draft of the stairwell had left my head swimming.
I had no appetite.
Back in my room, I pulled the blanket over my head.
Mom sighed the way you sigh at something you've given up on.
"This child. Throwing another tantrum."
"Same parents, and yet the gap between her and Pat is this wide. How?"
"Sometimes I want to run a DNA test, just to see if they swapped the babies on us back then."
Dad sighed along with her.
"Let her be."
"If she won't rise to it, what can we do?"
"We've got Nicholas and Pat, two children who actually care about us. That's enough."
Pat had grown up at our parents' side, given the best education the city had to offer.
But as far back as I could remember,
the only things beside me were endless fields and my illiterate grandmother.
How could a girl like me ever measure up to Pat, who'd been raised in love?
My head throbbed, foggy and miserable.
I drifted off into a daze.
When I opened my eyes again, the house was pitch dark.
My whole body burned like a furnace.
Out of habit, I called Nicholas's name. No answer.
I texted him. No reply.
