Chapter 1

After my last exam, I spotted Mom waiting in the distance in a bright red dress.

I was about to run to her when my twin sister, Rosie, beat me to it and threw herself into Mom's arms.

"Sweetheart, you must be exhausted."

Mom stroked Rosie's hair while Grant handed her an ice-cold juice and took her backpack.

I stood where I was and watched the three of them climb into the family car, with Mom and Grant fussing over Rosie from either side.

Just as the car was about to pull away, Rosie suddenly said, "Wait. We're missing someone."

For one foolish second, I thought she meant me. I hurried toward them.

Instead, Rosie waved at someone behind me.

"Ethan! Over here!"

Only after Ethan Cole climbed into the car did everyone finally notice me standing beside the open door.

"Vivi? What are you doing here?"

"Aren't you a year behind Rosie?"

Because of my health, I'd started school a year later than my twin. Once I recovered, though, all their attention shifted to Rosie.

They never even realized I'd skipped a grade.

I looked at their confused faces and smiled.

"I just came to wish Rosie luck."

"That's sweet of you." Mom pulled two dollars from her purse. "Do you have enough for the bus? I can give you more if you need it."

I looked at the two dollars in her hand, lowered my head, and whispered, "It's enough."

The car door shut without hesitation.

By the time I looked up again, even the exhaust had disappeared.

I sniffed, pulled out my phone, and typed a question into the search bar:

[Can you start college early?]

Chapter 1

Like always, I took the bus home.

The driver recognized me and looked surprised. "Kid, you just finished your finals. Nobody came to pick you up?"

I smiled and shook my head before taking a seat by the window.

A message from Mom popped up on my phone.

She said Rosie had done really well and the whole family was going out to Bellamy's that night to celebrate.

I stared at the words "whole family" for a long moment before replying:

[I'll be home in fifteen minutes.]

The typing bubble appeared, disappeared, then appeared again.

Eventually, Mom sent:

[Maybe you shouldn't come tonight. When it's your turn to take the placement exam, I'll take you out separately.]

I looked down at the exam ID card in my hand.

I was still wondering whether I should tell her that I'd taken the exam this year too when another message came in, this time from Grant.

[Vivi, you're old enough to understand things now, right?]

[Before you turned seven, you were sick all the time. Everyone in this family revolved around you.]

[Today is Rosie's last day of exams. It's important to her. Don't make this about you.]

[You already owe Rosie enough.]

A familiar helplessness washed over me.

I knew exactly what he was going to bring up again - the day Rosie had almost been kidnapped when we were seven.

It happened during one of Rosie's performances. I suddenly collapsed in the audience, and Mom scooped me up without a second thought and rushed me out.

When I woke up later, Mom's eyes were swollen from crying.

"We can't find your sister."

Then she stared at me and demanded, "Did you do that on purpose? I was already paying attention to you. Why couldn't you just sit quietly and watch your sister perform for once?"

Rosie was found three days later.

She threw herself into Mom's arms and sobbed.

I crept over, clutching my favorite stuffed toy. I wanted to give it to her.

Grant shoved me away so hard I nearly fell.

"What now? Are you going to pretend to be sick again? Get lost!"

From that day on, everyone decided I was jealous and desperate for attention.

Rosie, the daughter they'd almost lost, received all the love and care in the family.

I became invisible.

Even when I was actually sick, they assumed I was faking it.

"Your health has been fine for years. Are you really trying this trick again just to scare us?"

"For the first seven years, all of us revolved around you. From now on, we need to make it up to your sister.

"That's only fair."

The memory faded, and the bus came back into focus.

I blinked away the sting in my eyes and replied to Grant with a single word.

[Okay.]

When I got off the bus, the family car happened to pass right beside me.

The window was down.

Rosie was wearing a frilly party dress, curled up against Mom and beaming.

Chapter 2

The house was silent when I got home.

A bowl of instant noodles sat on the coffee table with a note beside it.

[I made these for you. Don't forget to eat.]

I recognized Ethan's handwriting immediately.

Maybe it had simply been too long since anyone had thought of me, because something as small as a bowl of instant noodles made warmth spread through my chest.

Whenever Mom and Dad took Grant and Rosie out to eat, I usually stayed home and filled up on bread.

At first, Mom used to ask what I wanted her to bring back.

Every time she returned, I'd excitedly take the shopping bag from her hands.

There would only be clothes and shoes inside.

"Mom, where's my dinner?"

She would blink at me in surprise.

"You haven't eaten yet? It's so late. We all thought you'd already had something."

I peeled back the lid of the noodles. They had been sitting long enough to turn soft and soggy.

After one bite, something felt wrong.

I spat it out and stared.

Tiny pieces of crushed peanut were mixed through the noodles.

Everyone knew I had a severe peanut allergy.

Why would Ethan put peanuts in my food?

My body reacted faster than I expected.

By the time Ethan answered my call, red welts had spread across my skin and the itching was almost unbearable.

"Vivi? What's wrong?"

"Ethan, why did you put peanuts in the noodles? You know I'm allergic."

He paused. "Of course I know. Why would I put peanuts in them?"

I was about to ask who else could have done it when Rosie snatched the phone from him.

Her irritated voice came through the speaker.

"Vivian, are you pretending to be sick again?

"Every time Mom and Dad go somewhere with me, you call and try to make them come home. When you were sick and they spent all their time with you, I never kept calling and demanding they come back to me."

"I'm not pretending." I fought the urge to claw at my skin. "There really were peanuts in the noodles. I'm having an allergic reaction."

"Stop making excuses. If there were peanuts in there, couldn't you see them? Or did you put them in yourself so you'd have a reaction and ruin my dinner?"

Then she turned on Ethan.

"I told you not to be so nice. You gave my sister the noodles you were going to eat, and now she's turning around and accusing you of trying to hurt her."

When Ethan took the phone back, his voice had gone cold.

"I regret leaving them for you. I should've just thrown the noodles away.

"So what if they went to waste?"

The call ended.

Only then did I finally understand.

The noodles hadn't been made for me at all.

Ethan had just prepared them for himself when Rosie invited him out to dinner. He left them behind for me because he didn't want them to go to waste.

I sat numb on the couch and messaged Mom.

[Mom, I'm having an allergic reaction. Can you take me to the hospital?]

I knew she might think I was lying, so I took a photo of the welts and sent it too.

Half a minute later, her reply appeared.

[Vivian, you're using AI-generated pictures to lie to your own mother now?]

Panicking, I tried to video call her.

She declined it.

I sent another message asking if she could at least transfer me enough money to get to the hospital myself.

A red warning symbol appeared beside the message.

She had blocked me.

So had Dad.

So had Grant.

Every member of my family had apparently reached the same conclusion: I was trying to ruin Rosie's celebration, so the easiest solution was to shut me out completely.

My hands fell uselessly into my lap.

As tears spilled down my face, one terrible thought crossed my mind.

If I died right here, would Mom and Dad finally regret it?

Chapter 3

In the end, I was too afraid to find out.

I had no money, so I took five hundred dollars that had been left on the entryway table.

It was Rosie's weekly allowance.

Mine was twenty dollars, just enough to cover the bus to and from school.

I told myself I'd explain when I got home. I would treat it as a loan and pay Rosie back.

By the time the IV was finished, it was already midnight.

I carefully slid my key into the front door.

It wouldn't turn.

"Mom! Dad!"

I knocked harder, panic rising in my chest.

The door across the hall opened instead.

Ethan stood there in pajamas, leaning against the frame. There was something almost mocking in his eyes.

"Vivi, Grant told me you'd do anything to get your parents' attention. I didn't believe him before.

"Now I do."

I shook my head frantically. I was about to tell him the reaction had been real when our front door finally opened.

The living room lights were blazing.

Rosie sat on the couch crying.

Mom and Dad glared at me, while Grant grabbed my arm and yanked me inside.

"Vivian, when did you become a thief?"

"I'm not! I didn't have any money for the hospital, so I..."

"Taking money without permission is stealing, no matter what excuse you have!" Dad slammed his palm against the table.

Tears sprang to my eyes.

"I tried to tell you, but all of you blocked me."

I pushed up my sleeves and showed them the red welts that still hadn't faded, then held out the medicine and discharge papers from the hospital.

Their expressions shifted.

Their voices finally softened.

"But that was your sister's money. You still shouldn't have..."

I lowered my head.

"I know. I owe Rosie five hundred dollars. I'll pay every cent back."

My vision blurred again as I spoke.

"Mom, Dad... when I was sitting there alone with an IV in my arm, I kept wishing one of you would walk through the door.

"Even if you only stayed for a little while..."

Pain flashed across Mom's face. She stood as if she were about to come to me.

Rosie caught her hand.

"Vivi, for the first seven years of our lives, Mom and Dad were at the hospital with you almost every day. I was the one left behind. Wasn't that enough?"

Her voice broke.

"Maybe I'm the extra person in this family.

"Maybe I should've just stayed kidnapped back then. At least then you'd finally get what you wanted!"

She rushed toward the door, but Grant caught her and pulled her into his arms.

"Rosie, that's not what Mom and Dad meant. Don't think like that."

Ethan stepped in from the hallway.

His voice was firm.

"Vivi, you know exactly how you ended up having that allergic reaction."

Everyone looked at me at once.

"Ethan, what do you mean?" Mom asked. "Are you saying Vivi did it to herself?"

He didn't answer immediately.

Instead, he walked over to the cold bowl of instant noodles and stirred it.

Bits of crushed peanut floated to the surface.

"Vivi, I'm going to say the same thing I said before.

"Why would there be crushed peanuts in instant noodles?

"You added them yourself so you'd have a reaction and force your parents to come home and look after you."

No one questioned him.

I shook my head in panic and said over and over that I hadn't done it.

Not one person believed me.

After all, they'd labeled me an attention seeker years ago.

Ethan stood and looked down at me, disappointment filling his eyes.

"You weren't like this when we were kids."

Grant gave a bitter laugh.

"She absolutely was. Rosie had a performance, and Vivi conveniently fainted."

"I didn't do it on purpose. There were too many people and I couldn't breathe, so I-"

"Right," he cut in. "You always have a reason."

At that, I stopped trying.

Anything I said would only sound like another excuse to them.

Mom sighed and glanced toward my bedroom.

"Rosie has been wanting a walk-in closet.

"Your rooms share a wall. We'll knock through and turn yours into part of hers."

Chapter 4

A smile tugged at Rosie's mouth before she quickly hid it.

"Are you sure that's okay? Where will Vivi sleep?"

"There's still that spare room," Mom said. "She can move in there."

The so-called spare room was tiny and packed with old boxes and junk.

I didn't argue.

I nodded, gathered my things, and moved into the storage room.

Grant and Ethan were even kind enough to carry my bed in for me.

Ethan looked around once it was squeezed against the wall.

"That's all that fits? Just the bed?"

For the first time in a while, he sounded almost sorry for me.

"Vivi, just apologize to Rosie. She's kind. She'll ask your parents to forgive you."

"I already apologized for taking her money without asking. That part was my fault."

"That's not what I mean. I mean the peanuts."

"I didn't put them there."

Ethan sighed. "So you're saying I did?"

I fell silent.

Then I sat on the edge of the bed and said quietly, "It doesn't matter anymore who did it."

"Why are you always so stubborn?"

I still remembered when we were little and Ethan had told me I looked like a broken little princess. He'd promised he would protect me.

By then, Rosie already had all of Mom and Dad's attention, so I spent most of my time with Ethan instead.

He was smart. His grades were always near the top of the class.

I used to trail after him and beg him to help me with homework.

Then, at some point, Rosie started doing the same thing.

Ethan would tell me to wait while he helped her first.

I kept waiting.

He simply never came back.

After that, the only things that stayed beside me were textbooks and stacks of practice papers.

I looked down at the boy crouching in front of me.

His eyes had long since lost the warmth I remembered.

"It's fine," I said. "I won't be living here much longer anyway."

After I made Ethan leave, I scratched the first tally mark into the wall.

Ten marks, and I could leave this house for good.

The next morning, contractors walked into what used to be my bedroom.

Anything I hadn't managed to pack was tossed into the hallway.

Mom looked uncomfortable.

"If there's anything you still want, hurry and pick it up before they throw it away."

I looked down at a faded headband on the floor.

Mom had bought it for me at an amusement park when I was four, right before my first round of chemotherapy.

Beside it was a brown teddy bear.

Grant had given it to me when I was five because I'd been terrified before a major surgery and couldn't stop crying.

Then there were three matching family T-shirts.

When I was six, the doctors told Mom and Dad that my condition was finally improving. They were so happy they'd had the shirts made, each one printed with our handprints.

I'd treasured those things for years, tucked safely in the back of my closet.

I stared at them for a long time.

Then I turned away.

"I don't want any of it. Throw it out."

Later, still wearing a washed-out T-shirt of my own, I helped carry several huge bags of new clothes into Rosie's expanded room.

"Mom and Dad bought all of these for me yesterday," she said proudly, lifting a brow.

When I didn't react, her expression soured.

"And you still owe me five hundred dollars. When are you paying me back?"

"Give me three days. I found a job."

On the first day, I came home so exhausted I nearly collapsed outside the door.

On the second, my arms hurt so badly I could barely lift them, but I forced myself up and went back to work.

On the third, I handed Rosie all five hundred dollars.

She tossed the money onto the table and told me she was going to a party, so I should iron her dress.

On the fourth day, my body finally started adapting to the hard labor. Frank, the site supervisor, told me I could keep up with anyone on his crew and bumped my pay by fifty dollars.

On the fifth, the whole family sat around discussing which college admissions consultant to hire for Rosie. They even talked about buying an apartment near whichever school she chose so she wouldn't have to suffer in a dorm.

On the sixth, they planned a family trip.

Rosie told them to buy five tickets and bring Ethan too.

I stopped in the hallway for half a second.

I felt like a stranger passing through someone else's life.

Rosie seemed delighted that I left early and came home late every day.

By the time I returned from work, my clothes were soaked with sweat and I smelled like I'd been standing under the sun for hours - because I had.

Rosie would sit in the air-conditioning eating watermelon, pinch her nose, and complain, "Ugh, what is that smell? Vivi, what kind of job did you get? Cleaning out dumpsters?"

Ethan would get up and crack a window for her.

Grant would glance at me and mutter, "Looks pretty healthy to me. So much for being sick."

I never answered.

Most nights, I didn't have the strength.

When I returned to the storage room that evening, I scratched the final tally mark into the wall.

Then my phone rang.

...

I bought a flight for before dawn.

With nothing but a backpack, I slipped quietly out of the room.

At the front door, I turned and took one last look at the house where I'd spent eighteen years of my life.

Memories flashed through my mind one after another.

Seven years of being cherished.

Eleven years of being ignored.

All because Mom and Dad kept insisting everything had to be "fair," I'd spent my life in that house trying to take up as little space as possible.

At dinner, I never reached for the best food.

Even though we had a car, I never asked for a ride. I'd taken the bus for eleven years.

And somehow, Rosie still thought I had too much.

It didn't matter anymore.

From now on, my life belonged to me.

The front door clicked softly shut behind me.

No one noticed I was gone - not until a news van pulled up outside and a reporter knocked on our door.