Chapter 1

To enforce my new stepdad, Robert Hayes' rule of a strict bill split on all household expenses, everything in our home was tagged with a price.

A price sheet was taped to the refrigerator door. Apples were a dollar each, milk was two dollars a carton, and leftovers cost three dollars per serving.

…

Mom and my stepsister, Harper Hayes, both held special privileges, so they could open the refrigerator and take whatever they wanted, whenever they pleased.

I wanted to open the refrigerator, too, but I couldn't afford to pay my share.

Dad indifferently remarked, "You don't have any money, so how do you expect to eat?"

When I stammered and was completely at a loss, he assumed an air of generosity.

"Fine. We'll put it on your tab for now, but you'll need to sign a personal loan agreement with your mom and me.

"The interest will be calculated at high-risk lending rates of 0.1% per day until you're an adult. Once you're all grown up and start earning money, you can pay us back."

So, I had to pay my share on every kilowatt-hour of electricity, every individual piece of pasta I ate, and even my share of the vacations Mom and Dad took with Harper…

As a result of the household bill split, I had already accumulated a staggering debt of over 600 thousand dollars to my family before I even reached adulthood.

To keep the debt from growing, I lived as frugally as I could. I dug through the trash for Harper's old clothes and worn-out shoes she had discarded. Sometimes, I begged on the streets just for food.

But no matter how desperately frugal I tried to be, winter arrived and brought with it a raging flu epidemic.

I had a fever, which spiked my body temperature to a dangerous 103.6 degrees Fahrenheit. My body was so warm that it felt like burning coal.

As expected, the first thing Mom and Dad did was pull out the family ledger. After punching numbers into a calculator, they printed a new loan agreement.

"We can take you to the hospital, Maddie, but you must understand that medical bills are a bottomless pit these days. Registration, blood tests, and IV drips can easily add up to at least 1,000 dollars.

"Like what we've agreed, everyone pays for their own share of household expenses, but for personal emergency expenses, like you getting sick and running a fever, it must be paid entirely out of your own pocket."

But I had zero funds to cover the cost, so I had to sign another loan agreement with Mom and Dad.

…

In the end, Mom and Dad never took me to the hospital because Dad complained that hospital visits were too expensive and a complete waste of resources.

He walked down to a local pharmacy, bought a box of fever reducers and anti-inflammatories. The total came to 18 dollars.

He entered my bedroom with the medication, followed by Mom.

"Maddie, even though you're not my biological child, it doesn't mean I don't care about you. I advanced my cash to buy this medicine, so you owe me 20 dollars, including a two-dollar delivery fee."

He placed the medication on the bedside table before handing over a sheet of paper and a pen.

"Sign the loan agreement first. Once you've signed, you can take your pills."

But the high fever left me so weak that I could barely open my eyes.

"Mom…" I called out in a raspy voice.

But Mom turned her head away and muttered under her breath, "Just hurry up and sign it, Maddie. You'll feel better once you sign and take the pills."

Suppressing the discomfort from the fever, I scrawled my signature unevenly across the loan agreement with shaking hands.

But just as I finished signing, Harper's voice came from outside the door. "Dad! Mom! I cut my finger, and it hurts so badly!"

Mom immediately sprang up like a coiled spring and sprinted toward Harper in the kitchen. Her voice was full of panic and concern.

"What happened, my precious Harper?

"Oh my goodness! Let me take a look! Is it bleeding?

"Honey, hurry up and send our precious Harper to the hospital to get the wound bandaged and a tetanus shot. Cuts like this are dangerous, and we can't risk an infection!"

Listening to the frantic roar of Dad revving the car engine outside the window, I lay in bed with tears streaming down my face.

I couldn't understand it.

Why did I have to pay out of pocket and sign a legal loan agreement just to get a box of 20-dollar pills for a 103.6-degree fever? Meanwhile, Harper could be taken to the hospital for free and receive a tetanus shot for a scratch on her finger.

Seeing how confused I was, Harper, who was fiercely protected as the apple of the entire family's eye, grinned at me and said, "That's because I'm Dad's biological child, and he loves me.

"And your mom loves my dad, so by extension, she loves me the most, too!"

Harper was indeed Dad's biological daughter, so she was entitled to receive the love of both Dad and Mom, the woman who adored him.

On the other hand, I was just Mom's biological daughter. And as I grew older, all I received was a snowballing, ever-growing mountain of debt.