"Irene, you can be angry at Mom, but hurting yourself just to play the victim? Really?"
"Sending you here broke Mom's heart too, you know."
"She's missed you all these years. Why won't you appreciate that?"
At her words, Mom's face hardened too.
"Irene, everything I did back then was for your own good, you—"
"Stop it! Just stop!"
The mention of that time tore the scream out of me before I could think.
The wild greens I'd been clutching scattered across the ground, and my breath came in ragged gasps, my face gone bloodless.
"Don't bring that up again. I'm begging you."
Mom froze, startled by how hard I'd snapped.
But Myrtle, as if on purpose, fixed her eyes on mine. "So a couple of punks almost roughed you up. It's been three years. You still can't get over it?"
My breath locked in my chest, and no matter how I fought it down, the memory came rushing back like a tide.
Three years ago, I'd represented my school at a speech contest.
On the way home, a few thugs cornered me in an alley.
Everyone knew I was the daughter of Harborview's richest woman.
They wanted money.
They searched every inch of me and didn't turn up a single dollar.
The one in charge got angry and told me to call home and ask for it.
I was crying too hard to talk, and I told them I didn't have a phone.
They thought I was lying, and that made them furious, so they beat me.
When that wasn't enough, they stripped my clothes off and took pictures.
They were going to use them to threaten my mother.
I'd always had fair skin, and the moment they saw me stripped bare their faces changed and they all rushed me at once—I struggled with everything I had, screaming until my throat tore, and only because the noise pulled a passerby in did anyone drag me out of it.
When I got home that day, I walked in on my mother throwing a birthday party for Myrtle.
A five-hundred-thousand-dollar necklace, handed over without a second thought.
That was when I finally broke.
My whole childhood, Mom raised me on austerity.
My clothes came from discount sites, and jewelry or handbags weren't even worth dreaming about.
Even buying a single book meant applying to her two months in advance.
She'd check with my teachers and classmates.
Only once she'd confirmed the book was actually useful for my studies would she give me the money.
But for Myrtle, on top of tuition, the living allowance alone never dropped below a million a year.
I smashed the birthday cake and screamed at my mother, everything inside me breaking loose at once.
"Do you have any idea what happened to me? Why couldn't you even buy me a phone?"
"We have all this money. Was it really too much to ask?"
Myrtle ducked behind my mother, cowering like I was some kind of monster.
My mother looked at the ruined cake, her face going cold.
"You're still in school. What do you need a phone for? It would only rot your mind."
"You're jealous of Myrtle, aren't you? Do you have any idea what kind of childhood she had?"
She grabbed my arm and, without another word, forced me into the car.
She brought me to Fox Hollow.
"Myrtle grew up here. You've had it easy and you still aren't satisfied, so go live the life she lived."
Panicked, I clung to her hand, past caring about my own hurt now, just sobbing that I was sorry.
"Mom, are you really going to pull me out of school just to punish me?"
"A few thugs almost assaulted me, do you understand? They took pictures of me!"
"I was wrong. I'll never do it again. Just take me home..."
My mother went still for a moment, then said flatly, "School means nothing. Your future is mine to decide, with or without it."
With that, she shook off my hand and got in the car.
I ran after her, ten miles, until the skin of my feet wore raw.
