“Evie, how was life in there? I heard it gets really messy. Is that right?”
“Not messy. You can read books and newspapers every day, and after eating, you return to the dorm.”
“That sounds pretty nice, not as hard as I pictured.”
While she spoke, a small look of letdown passed through Rosie’s eyes.
Jude placed a peeled shrimp on my plate and chuckled. “Now that you’re back, don’t mention anything from inside. Treat it as something you went through and leave it behind.”
Rosie’s eyes turned dull for a moment, and she stayed quiet.
After a short pause, as if something came to mind, she hurried into the bedroom and brought out a small fancy box, handing it to me.
“Evie, this is a gift I got ready for you. Congrats on getting out of prison!”
I didn’t take it and kept eating in silence.
She didn’t seem bothered, still smiling while she lifted the lid.
A pearl necklace rested inside, simple and classy. Right when I glanced at it, my eyes narrowed, and a sudden coldness swept over me.
Rosie pushed the necklace toward me.
Her expression slowly turned into something disgusting, her smile turning strange and cold.
“What’s wrong, Evie? Isn’t this the necklace you liked the most? You liked it so much you even took it.”
“Now that I’m handing it to you, aren’t you glad?”
That pearl necklace had been a gift Jude bought for Rosie.
It had also been the item that sent me to prison for three years, the thing behind everything.
After Dad lost his life on the battlefield, Mom took the funeral compensation and ran off, leaving only me and my brother to rely on each other.
He quit high school and wandered through all kinds of rough paths before finally starting a business and building his own company.
After he made money, he adopted Rosie, who also lost her father, and brought her home.
At the start, I refused, but Jude convinced me, “Rosie had it as hard as we did. At least you still have me, but she has no one.”
“Evie, be open-minded. It’s only adding another pair of utensils.”
But even though he said that, my brother treated her even better than he treated me.
From the beginning, it felt like he had wanted to raise a new little sister, giving her everything he had never given me.
Jewelry, accessories, bags, anything Rosie asked for, she received.
In only two years, he spent more than ten million.
That was money he earned with his own hardship, countless nights drinking for work, throwing up until the room spun, yet still pushing himself to drink again.
Since I worried about his money, I repeatedly told him not to buy too much, but Rosie took that to heart.
She hid her jewelry under my pillow and then cried to my brother, saying I stole it.
Out of anger, Jude forced me to kneel in the rain and admit what I’d done wrong.
“How could the Mitchell family have a daughter like you? Dad was a soldier, and I’ve lived honestly without doing anything wrong.”
“Of all the people to learn from, you learn from that mother who ran off with the money?”
“Did I not give you enough to eat or wear? Is that why you steal?”
Even while burning with fever, I cried and told him I hadn’t taken anything, but he still wouldn’t believe me.
By the next day, he had already found a top lawyer and took me to court.
He was my real brother, yet in the courtroom he stood on Rosie’s side and spoke for her.
At the final judgment, I received three years and was branded a thief.
Before I was sent away, relatives, friends, and even the lawyer urged him not to push things so far, saying that I was a girl and three years in prison would destroy my life.
But my brother refused to back down, even cutting ties with everyone just to make sure I went in.
“Evie won’t be ruined. I work to support her. Even if she is ruined, I can look after her for the rest of her life.”
“But she stole, she has to learn a lesson!”
During those three years, he showed up every month, asking if I understood my mistake.
But I never met him; I only asked the guards to send out one message. “I didn’t steal the money.”
