Chapter 4

I thought it was just someone playing a prank on me.

But shortly after, a delivery guy arrived at the door with a beautifully packaged cake. The card tucked inside the box bore Luther Grant's name.

Luther was the boy next door when I was little. He was also my childhood crush.

When I was 16, Luther and his family moved abroad, and my quiet crush faded away without closure. Now, as I stared at that familiar name, my heart skipped a beat.

Before I even had time to process my emotions, my fingers had already typed out and sent a reply.

[Luther, thank you so much for the cake! Do you have time to meet up?]

An affirmative reply came back almost instantly.

In a chaotic rush, I slapped a label onto the cake box, crammed it into the refrigerator, darted out the front door, and hurried to our meeting spot.

Luther was already waiting for me there. The moment I laid eyes on him, I froze in place.

He had outgrown his teenage boyishness, yet his facial features remained unchanged. When he looked up, those warm, smiling eyes were just as attractive as I remembered.

My throat felt tight, as if gripped by an invisible hand. For a moment, I didn't know what to say.

Luther greeted me, "Vivian, it's been a while."

I spent the entire day hanging out with him, and my mood lifted considerably. Yet the moment I returned home that evening, I saw the cake sitting open on the dining table, with more than half of its rich frosting scraped away.

Evie pushed open her bedroom door, carrying a plate while rubbing her stomach. "The cream on this ice cream cake is so delicious!"

She reached down, preparing to scoop up another huge glob of frosting. I didn't want to waste energy dwelling on our parents' blatant favoritism anymore, but this was the birthday cake Luther had sent to me.

"This is my cake!" I grabbed her arm, furious. "My label was stuck right on top! There's no way you didn't see it, so why did you open my cake?"

Hearing the commotion in the hallway, our parents rushed out of their bedroom.

"Why are you screaming at Evie?" Klara snapped.

I pointed straight at the dining table. "Evie took my cake without my permission!"

"What do you mean by that?" Klara frowned with deep irritation. "Evie is your sister. Are you seriously going out of your mind over a piece of cake?"

"Going out of my mind?" I pointed at my own chest.

All the suppressed fury bottled up from yesterday rushed to the surface as I recalled how they had treated me all these years. Even a saint would feel heartbroken and enraged under such treatment.

"Yesterday, when I didn't know the numbers had been reassigned and ate the dog's watermelon, you accused me of stealing!" I shouted at the top of my lungs.

"Today, when Evie knew full well the cake belonged to me and ate it anyway, you don't call that stealing? So, in this house, there are always two different standards of rules depending on who breaks them, right?"

Klara lost her tongue, while Robert Sellers gave Evie a nudge and cleared his throat awkwardly.

"Apologize to Vivian."

"I won't!" Evie lifted her chin, tears streaming down her face in thick droplets. "That cake was given to me by Luther! Vivian didn't have anyone to buy her a birthday cake, so she stole mine!"

Hearing Evie turn the tables so brazenly and frame me as a thief, I trembled with rage.

Just as I was about to pull out my phone to produce proof that she was lying, the front door swung open, and Calvin Sellers walked into the house.

Standing right behind him was none other than Luther.

"Mom, Dad, look who I brought home!" Calvin called out cheerfully.

Only after speaking did he feel the suffocating, tense atmosphere filling the living room.

"What happened here?"

Evie rushed over to him, twisting the facts into an exaggerated story before pointing to Luther.

"The day before yesterday, when I was eating out, I ran into Luther. He asked me what kind of cake I liked. So, this cake was obviously bought for me."