Chapter 2

"One more thing. You'd better give Jett the money you owe him, or I swear I'll make you regret it!"

With that, she took Jett's hand and walked off without looking back.

I sat slumped on the ground, watching the two of them walk away. The students and parents leaving the testing center shot me strange looks, and their whispers stung my ears. The sun was blinding, yet I felt cold all over.

This was the sister I had given everything to raise. This was the sister I would have given up anything for.

I sat there, laughing and crying at the same time. My tears mixed with the blood on my palms. I could not tell which hurt more.

…

I made my way home in a daze. The whole way, Hailey's words kept replaying in my head.

She had turned in a blank test. She was going to spend four years having fun with Jett. If I did not give him the money, she would make me regret it. Every word cut into my heart like a knife, over and over again.

Only when I reached my front door did I understand what she meant.

My clothes, shoes, and toiletries had been dumped all over the hallway. Even the family photo I had always treasured lay smashed on the floor, the glass shattered into pieces.

It was the last picture of the four of us together. For all these years, whenever I felt like I could not go on, it was the one thing I could take out and look at to keep myself going. Now someone had smashed it and carelessly tossed it into the hallway.

The sight made me so furious that my blood seemed to freeze in my veins.

I raised my fist and pounded on the door.

Moments later, it swung open. "Who is it?"

It was Jett. When he saw me, there was not a trace of guilt in his eyes, only contempt. "Oh? What are you doing back?"

I glared at him, trying hard to keep my emotions in check, but my hands would not stop shaking. "This is my home. Do I need your permission to come back? What gives you the right to throw my stuff out?"

Jett leaned against the doorframe, running a hand through his hair, and answered breezily. "Oh, I told Hails to toss it. It's not really right for an outsider like you to be living here, is it?"

An outsider? He was calling me an outsider?

This was my home. This was the home our parents had left behind. This was the home Hailey and I had shared for all these years.

Yet a boyfriend she had only known for a short while was standing in my doorway, calling me an outsider?

Shaking all over, I tried to push my way inside, but Jett shoved me straight back out. Caught off guard, I stumbled and slammed into the hallway wall. The back of my head hit it with a dull thud, and my vision went black for a second.

"You..."

Before I could say anything more, a familiar voice came from inside. "Knock it off, Jake."

Hailey stepped out and leaned into Jett's arms, looking down her nose at me as if I were some outsider who had shown up to cause a scene. "This is my home. Someday, it'll be mine and Jett's. Of course, he can do whatever he wants."

I froze. It felt as if something had slammed into my chest, and the pain nearly knocked me off my feet.

She kept going, "Besides, whatever Mom and Dad left behind should go to me anyway. I'm a girl, so I should get all the good stuff. Letting you live here for free all these years was already more than generous of me."

She said it with complete conviction, as if I had truly been taking advantage of her all along.

I opened my mouth, but my throat closed up, and not a single word came out. I could not believe these words were coming from the sister I had raised.

She was the same little girl who used to cling to me in tears and say, "You're all I have left."

Now she stood in front of me, telling me I had been living there for free and that she had already been generous enough.

Then Jett chimed in and started counting on his fingers. "You've lived here seven years. Say 3,000 a month, that's 36,000 a year, so seven years comes out to 252,000. That's not even counting HOA fees or utilities. When are you planning to pay up?"

He looked up at me with a smug grin.