Chapter 2 The Price of Fairness

There was so much luggage crammed into the storage room that almost every inch of the floor had disappeared beneath it.

Kendra had even placed her cat's litter box on my bed because there was nowhere else to put it.

For a moment, my mind went completely blank.

I turned toward the living room.

Laughter and conversation filled the house.

My mom happened to look in my direction, and our eyes met.

She saw everything. The humiliation on my face. The way I stood there with no place to sit, no place to lie down, and barely any room to move.

But after one quick glance, she simply looked away.

It was not the first time something like this had happened.

I used to have a bedroom of my own.

Then one day, Kendra threw a fit because her room was slightly smaller than Xander's. She cried and complained until my parents finally gave in.

In the name of fairness, they took half of my room and turned it into a walk-in closet for her.

When Xander found out, he did not argue. He slammed the door, stormed out of the house, and refused to come home until the next day.

After that, the remaining half of my bedroom became his gaming room.

That was how I ended up sleeping in the storage room.

It was freezing in winter, unbearably hot in summer, and barely large enough to fit a bed.

Outside, the rain came down harder.

Water collected along the windowsill until it finally overflowed and spilled onto the floor.

I stared at it for a long time.

Then, something clicked.

That was exactly what I was in this family: the extra. Whenever someone else needed more space, I was the one pushed aside.

First, they took my bedroom. Now, even the tiny corner I still called mine was being taken over.

I quietly closed the storage room door.

The laughter from the living room faded behind it.

The warmth out there had never really belonged to me anyway.

I did not sleep that night.

There was nowhere left for me to lie down.

Early the next morning, my academic advisor called and asked me to come to campus.

When I arrived at her office, she gave me the news I had been waiting for.

My application for the study-abroad exchange program had been approved.

For the first time in days, something inside me lifted.

Then her expression turned serious. "There's one issue. Since the program is overseas, we need a parental consent form on file."

She slid the paperwork across the desk. "Have you talked to your parents about this yet?"

My fingers tightened around the edge of my shirt. "It's fine. I'll figure it out."

After leaving her office, I had barely made it down the hallway when I saw my mom.

Kendra was clinging to her arm, her eyes red from crying. "Mom, I don't care. Xander won first place in his basketball tournament, and I didn't win anything. Do you know how embarrassing that is? It's not fair."

There had been a time when seeing them like that would have hurt.

I used to wonder what it felt like to have my mother hold my hand that way. I used to imagine what it would be like to have her comfort me before I even had to ask.

Now, I barely looked at them.

I tried to walk past.

"Wren, wait." My mom suddenly grabbed my wrist. "Didn't you win a gold award in that design competition? Why don't you give it to Kendra?

"You know how competitive she gets with Xander. If he has a first-place award and she has nothing, she'll be upset for days."

For a second, I honestly thought I had misheard her. "Mom, I worked for months on that competition. I—"

"I know you worked hard," she cut in. "What are you even going to do with the award? You might as well give it to your sister."

Then, she frowned. "Unless you want the whole house thrown into chaos again."

All the resentment I had buried for years rushed up at once.

'So, that's how this works. The only way this family can stay peaceful is if I'm the one giving something up.'

That same question rose inside me again.

'What about me?'

For once, I wanted to scream it in her face.

Then, my fingers brushed against the parental consent form inside my bag.

The anger inside me suddenly settled.

I looked at my mom again. "Fine. I'll give Kendra the award, but only if you sign something for me."

I pulled out the form.

My mom barely looked at it.

She took the papers from my hand, flipped straight to the signature line, and signed her name.

She never read the heading.

She never noticed the words "Study Abroad Exchange Program" printed clearly across the top.

The moment she finished, she handed the form back to me and turned toward Kendra.

Kendra stopped crying almost immediately.

As they walked away, she deliberately bumped her shoulder against mine.

Then, she glanced back with a small pout. "You could've just agreed in the first place. You made me cry for nothing."

There was not even a hint of embarrassment in her voice.

Why would there be?

She had spent her entire life believing that half of everything in this family belonged to her.

Even things that had never been hers at all.

I did not respond.

I only tightened my grip around the signed consent form.

For once, my family had given me something without understanding its true worth.

It was not merely a signature. It was my escape route.

For now, that was enough.