Lahat ng Kabanata ng My Family Auctioned Everything, So I Put My Life on the Block: Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 9

My father pulled a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet and slapped it down on the coffee table."Claire, you hear me? I'm adding a special cash auction today! Starting bid: fifty family credits. Win, and this twenty dollars is yours."You're always crying about being broke, right? Come get it!"The house was dead quiet. Only the wall clock's second hand kept ticking.I hovered above the coffee table, staring at the bill. All I felt was numb.Last month, the school organized a senior-class tour of the state university. The bus fare was twenty dollars.I pushed three thousand family credits onto the auction table, hoping to trade them for the cash.Before my father could say a word, Melody casually tossed out thirty thousand credits."I'll take it. I want to fold it into a paper airplane."Right in front of me, she tore the bill to shreds and threw the pieces out the window.That day, I spent an hour on my hands and knees in a downpour, picking up the scraps one by one.My father watched

For the next two days, I still didn't come out.My father seemed to be in a contest with me over who could hold out longer.He stopped cooking at home and took Melody out to eat every day, acting as if I simply didn't exist.Then, on the third afternoon, rapid knocking sounded at the front door.Outside stood Ms. Warren, my school's college counselor.Her forehead was slick with sweat, and she clutched a college application packet."Mr. Davis, I'm Olivia Warren, the college counselor at Claire Davis's school. She's been absent for four days straight, and I can't reach her by phone."The early application deadline is this week, and her scholarship paperwork still needs her guardian's signature. No matter how busy she is with work, she can't throw away her future like this!"My father blocked the doorway with a nonchalant smile."She can't even afford to bid on the application fee. How is she supposed to go to college?"Ms. Warren, we have our own system in this family. Everyone earns wh

My father was taken away by the police.The investigation was still ongoing. He had been detained on suspicion of child abuse.Two weeks later, he was released on bail and came back to handle my funeral arrangements.When he pushed open the front door, he looked like he had aged ten years.A large patch of his hair had gone white. His clothes hung limp and wrinkled on his frame. He looked like a hollowed-out shell.Melody had already taken the cash left in the house and fled to our uncle's place.The living room was a wreck. Only the whiteboard, still covered in auction rules, remained on the wall.Before long, Ms. Warren arrived.She didn't say a word. She just slammed a faded old backpack down on the coffee table.The zipper fell open, spilling out a few worn textbooks, a stack of returned college applications, and a diary held together with strips of tape."Mr. Davis."Ms. Warren's eyes were rimmed with red, boring into him."Do you have any idea what your daughter's life was like a

My funeral was extravagant.My father sold the house and emptied his savings to buy me a sunny plot in the most expensive cemetery in the city.He brought a truckload of funeral flowers and withdrew tens of thousands of dollars in cash.There were no guests at the headstone. Just him.He set fire to the crisp twenty-dollar bills and let them burn on the ground in front of the headstone, stack after stack.The firelight lit up his gaunt face."Clary, no more auctions today."All of this is yours."He wiped my photo on the headstone with his hand. The wound on the back of his hand split open from the heat, smearing blood across the stone."Go buy yourself a big house over there. Buy the finest clothes."Eat whatever you want. You never have to count credits again."I hovered above the fire pit, watching the flames churn.When I was alive and at my poorest, he kicked away a marked-down sandwich that cost next to nothing as if it were garbage.When I needed nothing more than his signature