CHAPTER SEVEN

 

LILIAN

I walked up the stairs with Fiona behind me. Suddenly, a memory flashed through my mind—it was my twentieth birthday. My adopted parents had invited close friends. Mother had invited some of her colleagues from her house design brand.

“Mom, there’s this design I really love for my birthday,” I had said, showing her an inspiration picture I found on P*******t. “I’d like my room to have the same design.”

She had smiled and promised to make it happen. But during the party, I remembered hearing murmurs about my size and the scars on my skin, and I had rushed to my room to find another outfit that covered my entire body. My mother had followed me into my bedroom.

“You should be confident about your skin, Lilian,” she had said. “Being plus-sized and having scars doesn’t make you any less worthy.” I had simply smiled at her, tears rolling down my cheeks.

Now, the same room my mother had designed for me two years ago was being handed to Fiona. Well, could I blame them? She deserved it since she was their biological daughter, and I looked nothing like them.

“Walk faster,” Fiona said, tapping my back. “Ew, why is your back dripping with sweat?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.

“You are so disgusting.” I was on the verge of breaking, but I kept climbing the stairs anyway. 

“Don’t be mad,” she said as she watched me move my things.

Then she yawned and added, “Hurry up, I really need to sleep.” I spent close to an hour moving my belongings into the guest room downstairs.

“Make sure the guest room you’re occupying doesn’t have anything too expensive,” Fiona scoffed. “You can’t be having the same things I do.” She looked at me with a cold smile.

“You’re a fake daughter.” The room she had chosen for me was painted completely white, with no decorations or designs on the walls.

The next morning, Fiona walked upstairs and swung my bedroom door open. “This bedroom suits you, but don’t stain the walls,” she said, flashing me a wicked smile.

“I was even kind enough to let you have this room, Lilian.” She tilted her head. “I should resent you for having all my parents’ attention for twenty-two years, only for them to find me last month.”

“You enjoyed every single luxury, so you shouldn’t be frowning.” As soon as she left the room, I stood in front of the mirror. Suddenly, my phone rang.

It was Alex. “I’m sorry about yesterday,” he said. “For leaving you that way.” He paused before asking, “Did you manage to find a cab home?”

I packed my backpack while answering him, but I never told him that I had walked most of the way before getting help. “Hope my fake girlfriend is on her way to school,” he added.

Suddenly, my mother marched into my bedroom and snatched the phone from my hand. “How dare you?”

“What, Mother?” I asked, wondering what I had done this time. Alex’s voice came through the phone. “Lilian, are you still there?”

My mother smashed the phone against the floor. “What happened to the car your father gave you last year?” she demanded.

That was the same car I had given to Michael. “Come downstairs,” she ordered.

“But Mother, my phone—you smashed it.” She stared at me coldly.

“I bought it for you, so I also have the right to smash it,” she said. As I walked down the stairs, I heard Fiona’s voice.

“She’s always seeking attention around campus.” “She gives guys expensive things because she wants them to date her,” Fiona continued.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, Dad was sitting there in his glasses, and the way his eyes lifted toward me told me this wasn’t going to end well. “Fiona told me what you do with my money,” Dad said, disappointment spreading across his face.

“You spend it on boys?” “Dad, I—”

“Silence,” my mother interrupted. “Dad, she’s also doing the same thing with the hockey captain,” Fiona added.

“You mean Alex?” Dad asked. “Yes, Father. Alex.”

“Isn’t he the guy you said you were interested in?” my mother asked Fiona. “Yes, Mother,” Fiona replied.

“But she had sex with him and probably paid him some money.” “So you’re not a virgin?” My mother pointed at me before walking toward me.

Her palm flew across my face. “I thought I had trained you better,” she said. “You go around paying guys money to sleep with you?”

The truth was, I hadn’t been touched intimately. I was even scared to look at my own body, though I had once imagined what it would be like to be with Michael because he had been my first love.

He couldn’t even kiss me, let alone touch me. “You irritate me,” he had said to me once. I had ignored it, convincing myself it was nothing.

I looked at the floor, hoping I could just disappear. My mother glanced at the wall clock.

“It’s late.” I exhaled deeply and took a step toward the door. “Fiona, the driver will take you to school,” my mother said.

“Mom, chillax, I’m twenty-two, not a toddler.” Fiona smiled and added, “But I’ll always be your baby.”

She gently blew her mother a kiss. “All right, then. Drive carefully.” She turned toward the door.

Everything had once been directed at me, but now the affection belonged to Fiona. Fiona strutted toward me and shoved me aside.

If not for my size, I could have fallen. She walked to the garage, picked one of Dad’s cars, and drove off.

I hurried back inside and glanced at my wristwatch, realizing how late I was already running. I walked over to Dad and held out my hand.

“Dad, can I use your phone for a minute?” He handed it to me without saying anything. I quickly opened Uber and tried booking a ride with my card.

Transaction failed. Transaction has reached its limit. Transaction declined. I stared at the message, my stomach tightening. What was going on?

I had my own card, one they had funded for as long as I could remember. How could it suddenly fail? “Man, what the heck is going on?” I muttered.

My thoughts jumped from the failed payment to my broken phone and then to getting to school, making it difficult to focus on what I needed to do first. “Dad,” I said, turning toward him, “I can’t book an Uber.”

“I think the network is acting up, and that’s why the payment isn’t going through.” I swallowed hard. “Can I take one of the cars to school?”

“The network isn’t acting up,” my mother replied. “Your account has been frozen.” She rested a hand against my father’s shoulder.

“You’re an adult. You can take care of yourself.” She looked at me without a hint of concern. “Or better still, trek to school.”

I stared at her, stunned by the coldness in her voice. My own adoptive parents had just frozen the money I depended on and were now sending me to school on foot.

“Now leave,” she said. I walked back outside and started toward school.

I kept checking my wristwatch, knowing I was already running late for my first class. After fifteen minutes, my legs began to grow numb.

Then a horn sounded behind me. I turned around.

“Alex,” I muttered.