I Was Sent Out Of The Country

My comment had been up for less than ten seconds.

The comment section, which had been full of [Need a sugar baby?] and [Please adopt me!], suddenly went quiet.

Then came a flood of question marks.

[???]

[Her older sister? Seriously?]

[One sister gets $20,000 for the week, and the other gets $32? Guess we know who the favorite is.]

Some people even tagged my sister and demanded an explanation.

As I stared at the comments, the page suddenly refreshed itself.

When I tried to open the post again, all I got was, [This post has been deleted.]

Less than two minutes later, over a dozen new messages popped up in the family group chat.

Tracey Darrow sent the first one.

[Helen, I’ll cancel the trip. Please don’t be mad.]

Then came four screenshots confirming the refunds.

She had sent back every cent of the $5,000 each of our parents, our brother, Barney Darrow, and Ethan Colbert had given her.

Her willingness to give up the trip only made everyone feel worse for her.

Mom was the first to respond. She tagged me directly.

[@Helen You little brat! What have you been telling people?]

[What’s this about surviving seven days on $32? You’re making it sound like we abuse you!]

[We give you an allowance AND a credit card. Most college kids would kill to have it as good as you!]

Whenever I had asked them individually, they had passed me off to someone else.

This time, I asked them all in the group chat.

[Really? Then where’s my allowance? And where’s my card?]

The chat went quiet for a moment.

Then Dad sent a voice message.

“So we give you money, and this is the thanks we get? We already sent it. If you blew through it, that’s your problem. Don’t blame your parents.”

I was about to argue when Barney stepped in to smooth things over.

[Enough. Don’t turn this into a whole thing.]

[Tracey worked hard in the orientation camp and won an award. We gave her that $20,000 so she could get away and relax over spring break.]

Ethan, our childhood friend, joined in.

[Helen, your parents have always treated you both fairly.]

[Tracey got the money because she won an award. When you win something, I’m sure they’ll do the same for you.]

Mom immediately chimed in.

[Exactly. When have we ever played favorites?]

[If you’d also won that award, I would’ve given you just as much.]

[But you didn’t!]

Easy for her to say.

She seemed to have forgotten that I never even had a chance to join the orientation camp.

The summer before college, my parents had signed us both up for driving lessons, supposedly because they wanted to “treat us equally.”

Except Tracey’s lessons cost $4,500. Mine cost $500.

The cars at my driving school were old wrecks that rattled so badly they felt ready to fall apart.

On my third lesson, the brakes failed, and the car slammed into a wall.

The crash broke my right leg.

I was still in a cast when the semester started.

What was even more absurd was that my medical bills came to $5,000, so my parents gave Tracey another $5,000, just to “keep things fair.”

None of the four would take Tracey’s money. They sent it all straight back.

Ethan stepped in again to smooth things over.

[How about this? Tracey keeps the money and takes us all out to dinner to celebrate. Then we put this behind us. Sound good?]

I was about to say I would pass, but then I remembered I had been scraping by on meatless meals for over a week. If Tracey was paying, we were bound to end up at a fancy restaurant.

So I swallowed my pride.

[Okay.]

The next day, I deliberately skipped lunch.

I felt rather pleased with myself. Not only would I have room for more food that evening, but I had also saved myself the cost of a meal.

When I reached the restaurant, Barney and Ethan were already there.

Each had a beautifully wrapped gift box beside him.

Tracey’s eyes lit up as she opened them.

“Barney, how did you know I wanted this? Ethan, this has been on my wishlist forever!”

I sat beside them in silence. I was looking forward to dinner, but then Ethan turned to me.

“Helen, Barney and I were supposed to get you girls a present each, but we didn’t check with each other, and we both ended up buying for Tracey. We’ll make it up to you next time, okay?”

It had always been like this.

Somehow, they always ended up buying both presents for Tracey.

At first, I had believed it was an honest mix-up.

After enough times, I had figured it out.

It was just like the allowance and the credit card. No one had ever intended to give me one either.

“Sure,” I replied.

I did not even care about presents anymore.

I just wanted to eat.

The steaks arrived a few minutes later.

My mouth watered as I picked up my knife and fork, ready to dig in.

Then Ethan ruined the moment again. “By the way, the four of us should split the bill. This place isn’t cheap, and Tracey’s the youngest. We can’t actually let her pay for all of us, can we?”