Chapter 4

"Pearl!"

Mom called after me. For a split second, a tiny spark of hope flared in my chest.

Maybe they saw the hives breaking out on my neck. Maybe they finally realized.

But Mom's voice was cold. "Since it's summer break, don't just laze around. Find a summer job."

"You're an adult now. Act like one."

Jade got a vacation to Cabo, and I got a demand to work.

I stood frozen for a second, then pushed open the restaurant door.

Actually, I had always been the "mature" one.

I gave up my dresses, did the chores, and never asked for a penny.

But because they didn't care, everything I did was a mistake.

I took an Uber to the ER alone.

I sat in the waiting room, got my prescription, and paid for it myself.

I was used to being alone. It shouldn't have hurt.

But then, my phone buzzed with an Instagram notification. Jade had posted.

[Craving custom cake, so Mom and Dad took me out! Forever their little princess! ]

In the photo, Mom and Dad were laughing, feeding Jade a slice of gourmet cake.

I remembered asking Mom for a small cake for my birthday once.

Her response had been freezing: "Don't you want to be a dancer? Where is your self-control? Do you want to get fat?"

The doctor's voice broke my thoughts. "Acute allergic reaction. If you had come any later, your airway would have closed up."

It felt like a physical blow to my chest.

"Sweetheart, doesn't your family know you have a severe shellfish allergy?"

Of course they knew. They just didn't care.

I sat in the cold hospital bed with an IV in my arm, watching the fluid drip down.

If Jade had been gone this late, they would have called the police in a panic.

But my lock screen was completely empty. Not a single text.

My knuckles turned white as I clutched my phone.

I opened Instagram again. Mom had posted a collage of Jade.

[My beautiful girl graduated! Next stop: Juilliard!]

I scrolled through Mom's feed. It was a sea of Jade.

My face appeared exactly once—in the background of Jade's photo.

My mother's colleagues at work didn't even know she had twins.

Once, one of them saw me and was shocked. "Twins? I had no idea!"

"Pearl doesn't look like Jade at all. She doesn't really fit in, does she?"

My parents had just laughed, pulling Jade closer. "Yeah, they came from the same belly, but we wish Pearl had even half of Jade's grace."

To them, I was just a defective buy-one-get-one-free deal.

By the time my IV was finished, it was the next morning.

I walked back into the apartment. My parents were in the living room packing Jade's designer suitcases.

Dad glanced up at me. "Pearl, where the hell were you?"

"Does it matter? You didn't notice anyway."

The room went dead silent.

Dad's face twisted in rage. "Do you think because you're eighteen, you can talk to us like that?"

"Staying out all night and now you have the nerve to blame us?"

The hives on my hands were still red and swollen.

They were looking right at them. But they pretended not to see.

I clenched my fists, the skin burning. "It won't happen again."

Ignoring Dad's yelling, I walked back to my room.

All of my belongings had been thrown into the hallway.

In the trash can lay my painted plaster doll—shattered into pieces.

I had painted that doll when I was eight. I had won second place in a dance competition, and they had taken us to a craft shop.

That was the only time I stood next to Jade on a podium. She had won first.

Before I could even finish painting it, they had abandoned me at the shop to take Jade to the movies.

Jade walked out of my room, smirking. "Pearl, since you're going to college anyway, you won't be coming back much. I'm taking over your room, okay?"

I stared at the broken pieces of my childhood in the trash.

"Sure," I said quietly.

I was never coming back anyway.

Let her have it.