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The smile froze on my mother's face.
"William! Have you no shame?"
She hurled her phone straight into my face.
The sharp corner opened a cut across my cheek, and blood welled up along the line.
"All for the empty vanity of some big-name school, you won't even give an inch to your own brother."
"Your father and I raised you all these years for nothing!"
My father's face was iron-gray too, his voice thick with disappointment.
"Eighteen years we raised you, and this is what we get. A heart of stone."
He pointed at the door and snapped,
"Get out!"
"You think your wings are strong now? Then don't set foot in this house again!"
Cecil lay sprawled across the couch, feet up, a smug little smile he couldn't hide tugging at his mouth.
He'd always loved watching me get scolded, watching me forced to back down.
I kept my eyes low. The ache in my chest had already gone numb.
For as long as I could remember, I'd heard this kind of blame that twisted right and wrong. I knew it by heart.
"Fine. I'll go."
I answered quietly, dragged my suitcase around, and turned to leave.
But my mother suddenly gave a cold laugh.
"Since you won't give way for Cecil."
"Then let's settle the whole account."
I turned back and stared at her, dead inside.
"From the day you were born. Eighteen years."
"Every breath of air you've taken in the Simmons house gets billed."
Not a trace of warmth in her voice.
"Paid in full, all at once. One hundred thousand."
A hundred thousand!
Two words, tossed out light as nothing, slammed down hard on my broken heart.
My throat ached. "You're charging me for breathing too?"
"Why not?"
She said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Nothing in this house is free. Why should you get to breathe here for eighteen years for nothing?"
"You don't want to do community college with Cecil, then pay off the hundred thousand."
My father cut in, his tone hard.
"We fed you and kept you all these years. Is a hundred thousand really too much to ask?"
"This is the last chance we're giving you. Don't be an ungrateful fool."
I looked at these cold, heartless people in front of me.
The last small flame of family feeling inside me went out for good.
So this was what I was in this house.
Even being alive was a crime I had to pay off.
"I don't have the money."
My voice came out hoarse.
"No money?"
My mother sneered and pulled out a contract.
"Then sign an IOU."
"At the bank's highest interest rate. Paid off within a 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.
Every bit of the hurt and the anger, I pressed down hard and buried it.
I quietly took the pen she held out and signed my name.
"Miss a payment and I'll take you to court, straight off."
Her eyes were ice-cold.
"I'll put a bad-credit record on you. See if you can ever get a job after that!"
"Fine."
I turned to walk out.
Out of the corner of my eye I caught my mother making a payment on her phone.
With the three thousand I'd just transferred, she was buying Cecil a pair of limited-edition sneakers.
"A coming-of-age gift for my precious boy."
"Whatever other people's kids have, my son gets it too."
I looked down at my own shoes, already worn through with holes, and the old patched school uniform.
Nothing but bitterness on my face.
Same blood. Same flesh and bone.
My brother was the treasure.
And I was the outsider who had to pay to breathe.
To clear that sky-high IOU and scrape together tuition for the elite university,
I found a restaurant that came with room and board and took a part-time job.
Carrying plates, washing dishes, clearing up. Worked till my back wouldn't straighten and still didn't dare rest.
Then, out of nowhere, a gentle figure caught hold of me.
"William?"
It was Maya Delgado.
Something in my chest warmed a little. All the misery of the past days found a moment of comfort.
Maya was what had kept me gritting my teeth and holding on.
Three years of high school.
She'd slip bread into my bag when no one was looking. She'd step in front of me and chase off the kids bullying me.
She'd stand out in the blazing sun collecting plastic bottles with me, cheer me through the most miserable stretches of my life.
We'd promised each other long ago. We'd get into the elite university together.
Start school side by side.
And now, finally, it was about to happen.
She looked at me, her gaze soft, her voice full of pity.
"I heard you're... staying in some temporary dorm?"
"It's a rough crowd around here. You need to be careful."
"Let me hold onto your things for now."
Her eyes were earnest. "It'd be a real mess if your acceptance letter got lost."
I was so grateful I nearly cried.
"Thank you, Maya."
She smiled, gentle as ever. "Don't worry. I've got everything covered."
That night, I collapsed onto the hard board bed in the dorm.
Then my phone buzzed.
It was a post from Cecil.
In the photo, he was in the middle of changing something in the college application field.
And what he had in his hand was my ID!
The caption was cocky and gloating.
【Top scorer's working as my personal manservant. That's the kind of pull the young master's got.】
Below it, a comment from Maya. 【Whatever baby wants, baby gets.】
It was like being dropped into a pit of ice. I was shaking all over, worse than I could stand.
