I was fifteen when my mom died on a rainy night, chasing after my sister who’d run off to elope. Outside the emergency room, I stared daggers at my sister—standing there in a mud-stained wedding dress, soaked to the bone. She’d abandoned us for some lowlife, and now she had the nerve to show her face here. I completely lost control. I rushed at her and slapped her hard across the face. “You killed Mom! If you hadn’t been so desperate to run off with that man, Mom never would’ve chased after you! She wouldn’t be dead!” My sister’s head snapped to the side from the blow, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. But she didn’t make a sound. She just lowered her head into the dust and knelt even straighter. From that moment on, I decided the sister who’d once cherished me had died along with Mom. “Sign here. Don’t hold up the line.” The crematorium worker slapped the cold form down on the table. I gripped the pen, my hand shaking like I had Parkinson’s. Not from grief. From rage. Charlotte,who also happened to be my older sister,was kneeling in front of the iron door of the cremation furnace at that very moment. Her once-white wedding dress now looked like a dirty rag, covered in mud and dried blood. That scumbag Jake stood behind her, the tattoo on his neck writhing as he puffed on his cigarette. He looked thoroughly annoyed, his foot tapping impatiently against the floor. “Hey, kid, hurry it up.” Jake flicked his cigarette butt on the ground and crushed it viciously under his boot. “Your sister’s got business to take care of with me.” I snapped my head up and glared at this disgusting pair. “What business? Your wedding?” I spoke through gritted teeth, each word like a stone spat from between my jaws. “Mom just died and you two are going home to sleep together?” Charlotte’s body trembled. She lifted her head—that face that was usually so gentle now deathly pale, her forehead covered in scabs from kowtowing. “Emma…” Her voice was hoarse, like her throat was full of sand. “Don’t call me that!” I screamed, cutting her off. “Murderer! You have no right to say my name!” “If you hadn’t insisted on running off with this thug today, how would Mom have chased after you in the rain? How would she have been hit by that truck?” “Charlotte, you should be the one lying in there!” Tears spilled from Charlotte’s eyes. She opened her mouth as if to explain. But Jake suddenly stepped forward, grabbed her by the hair, and shoved her head down. “Shut up.” Jake said coldly. “Enough with the talking.” Charlotte actually shut up. She obediently lowered her head, like a dog with a broken spine. Watching this made my stomach turn. Was this the same sister who’d promised to protect me for the rest of my life? She’d thrown away her dignity for a man. She’d traded Mom’s life for a man. I scrawled my name on the form: Emma. The pen tip tore through the paper. “Get out.” I threw the form at them and pointed at the door. “Take your wild man and get out of my sight.” “As of today, I have no sister, and don’t you dare tell anyone you know me.” Charlotte’s whole body stiffened. She looked at me deeply, her eyes containing too many emotions I couldn’t understand: despair, pain, and a trace of eerie relief. Jake yanked her arm and dragged her out like a dead dog. The rain kept falling. I watched their figures disappear into the curtain of rain, then turned and hugged Mom’s urn. “Mom, did you see?” “That woman is gone.” “From now on, it’s just you and me.”
After handling Mom’s funeral, I was taken in by my uncle’s family. It was called adoption, but it was really surveillance. Because of Mom’s compensation money. My aunt Lydia was a shrewd woman. When her beady eyes narrowed, you could practically hear the abacus beads clicking in her mind. “Emma, honey, you’re still young. I’ll hold onto this money for you.” “When you go to college, I’ll give it all back with interest.” I hugged my backpack and curled up on the balcony, not saying a word. I knew it was a lie. But I had no power to resist. At fifteen, I had nothing in this world except that money. And Charlotte became the biggest joke in our small town. “Did you hear? She ran off with Jake.” “Tsk tsk, you never really know someone. She looked so proper, but deep down she’s such a slut.” “Of course. To run off with a man, she even got her own mother killed.” The gossip spread like rats in the sewers, getting into everything. Every time I went out, I felt people stabbing me in the back. “Look, that’s Charlotte’s sister. Stay away from her—whole family of sluts.” I hated Charlotte. That hatred became my only reason to keep living. I studied frantically. I wanted to get out of here, as far away as possible. I wanted to prove to everyone that I wasn’t like that woman. Six months later, I saw her on my way home from school. Charlotte was wearing a faded old jacket, crouched by the garbage pile at the market picking through rotten vegetables. She was emaciated beyond recognition, her cheekbones jutting out, her eye sockets sunken deep. Jake sat on a motorcycle nearby, counting a stack of bills and occasionally kicking her. “Move faster! You still gotta wash my feet when we get home!” Charlotte stumbled from the kick and nearly fell into the garbage pile. But she didn’t make a sound, just got up and kept picking. People around pointed and whispered, contempt written on their faces. I stood at the back of the crowd, watching coldly. This is the “love” you chose? This is the person you killed Mom to be with? You deserve it. You really deserve it. Charlotte seemed to sense something and whipped her head around. The moment our eyes met, she frantically hid the rotten vegetables behind her back and instinctively tried to smooth down her disheveled hair. “Emma…” Her lips formed my name. I expressionlessly turned and walked into the convenience store nearby. “Give me a bottle of water.” “The most expensive one.” I said it deliberately loud. When I came out, I unscrewed the cap and, right in front of Charlotte, poured the remaining half bottle of water on the ground. The water splashed onto her worn-out shoes. “Dirty.” I said quietly. Charlotte’s body shook violently, tears falling in large drops. Jake saw this. He jumped off the bike and flicked his cigarette at me. “What’s with that look?” I didn’t dodge, letting the ash fall on my school uniform. “The look you give trash.” I said it and walked away without looking back. That night, I woke up laughing from a dream. When I woke, my pillow was wet.
My senior year of high school, Lydia finally showed her fangs. “Emma, honey, it’s not that I don’t want to help you.” “It’s just that compensation money… your uncle lost it in a business deal.” At the dinner table, Lydia cut a piece of cake for my cousin without even glancing at me. “Girls don’t need that much education anyway.” “There’s a widower in the next town looking for a young wife. He’s offering eighty thousand dollars.” “Go meet him. If it works out, we can even help your cousin with a down payment.” I slammed my bowl down hard on the table. “That’s MY money! That’s money Mom traded her LIFE for!” “That’s my tuition!” “Smack!” Uncle Robert slapped me across the face. “We feed you and house you, and you dare talk back?” “You don’t get a say in this! You’re going on that date tomorrow!” I clutched my face and ran out the door. The world was vast, yet I had nowhere to go. I sat on the stone steps by the river, staring at the pitch-black water, thinking about jumping in and ending it all. Suddenly, a jacket reeking of tobacco was draped over my shoulders. I whirled around in fear. It was Jake. His face was bruised, his mouth still swollen, like he’d just been in a fight. I shrank back in terror. “What do you want?!” Jake didn’t say anything. He pulled an envelope from his jacket and tossed it in my lap. The envelope was thick and heavy. “Take it.” His voice was rough, like he was speaking through hot coals. “What for? Trying to buy me off?” I threw the envelope back at him, disgust all over my face. “You two are disgusting. Done selling the sister, now you want to buy the other one?” A vein throbbed at Jake’s temple. He took a deep breath, as if suppressing his rage. “This is from your sister.” “She heard you needed tuition money, so she sold…” He stopped, his eyes flickering. “Sold what?” I laughed coldly. “Her body?” Jake actually slapped me too. This slap was even harder than Uncle Robert’s. My ears rang. “Emma, you’re an ungrateful piece of garbage!” Jake pointed at my nose and cursed. “Your sister nearly killed herself for you, and you’re acting all high and mighty?” “What did she sell? She sold her blood! Her hair! She worked in sweatshops folding boxes until her fingers rotted!” “All to scrape together your tuition money!” I froze. Looking at the envelope on the ground, an inexplicable sourness welled up in my heart. But I quickly pushed it down. “I don’t need it.” I stood up and kicked the envelope into the river. “I’d rather starve to death than spend a murderer’s money.” The envelope floated on the water’s surface for a moment, then sank. Jake stared at the river, his eyes frighteningly red. He didn’t hit me. He just looked at me with the gaze one gives a corpse. “Fine. Emma, remember what you said today.” “Even if you get on your knees and beg me later, I’ll never let your sister lay eyes on you again.” He turned and walked away. His silhouette melted into the night like a wounded lone wolf. I stood by the river, the cold wind cutting through me. I thought I’d won. I thought I’d held my ground. Until the next day, when Uncle Robert forcibly dragged me into a van outside the school gates.
“Let go of me! Help!” I struggled desperately in the van. Robert held my hands in a death grip. Driving up front was that pig-faced widower. “Heh heh, this girl’s got spirit. I like that.” The widower looked at me through the rearview mirror, his gaze lecherous. “I’m your niece!” I cried out in desperation. “So what if you’re my niece? Can a niece put food on the table?” Robert spat. “Raised you for three years—time you paid the family back.” The van headed toward a deserted country road. Despair swallowed me like a tide. Just then, a beat-up motorcycle came charging out from the side like a madman. The motorcycle slammed hard into the front of the van. The van spun out of control and crashed into a tree by the roadside. Dizzy and disoriented, I lifted my head. I saw him crawl up from the ground, face covered in blood, holding a machete. He limped over, yanked open the car door, and pulled Robert out like a chicken. “You son of a bitch!” Jake’s eyes were bloodshot as he brought the flat of the blade down on Robert’s back. The widower panicked, shoved the door open, and ran. “Emma! Run!” That voice… it wasn’t Jake’s. I turned my head and saw Charlotte, who’d fallen from the back of the motorcycle. She was covered in mud, struggling to crawl toward me. “Charlotte…” I called out instinctively. Charlotte froze for a moment, then smiled—a smile uglier than crying. “Go… Jake will hold them off… just go…” She pushed me, her strength surprisingly fierce. In the chaos, her old jacket tore. A yellowed diary fell from her chest. That was Mom’s diary! I remembered—when Mom died, this diary had gone missing. I’d always thought it was lost. I picked up the diary as if possessed. The wind flipped open the pages, revealing line after line of writing. [March 12. That bastard David (Dad) came asking for money again. He said if I don’t give it to him, he’ll sell Emma to the widower to pay his debts.] [March 15. I’m not doing well. My health is getting worse. The doctor says Emma’s heart condition might relapse. It’ll cost a fortune.] [March 20. Charlotte says she has a way. She agreed to marry Jake. They’re willing to pay two hundred thousand dollars and help settle David’s gambling debts.] [March 21. No! I can’t sell my daughter! Charlotte is only twenty years old! I have to go after her. I have to return their money. Even if I go to prison, I can’t ruin Charlotte’s life!] My brain went blank. The sounds of fighting and cursing around me seemed to disappear. I stared at those words. [Marry Jake… help settle David’s gambling debts…] So there was never any elopement. There was never any true love. She sold herself! Charlotte sold herself to save me, to pay off the gambling debts of our so-called “missing” father! Mom didn’t go to stop an elopement. Mom went with the house deed to try to buy her daughter back! I looked at Charlotte crawling on the ground. She was still pushing me. “Go! Don’t worry about me!” Her voice was hoarse and ugly because her vocal cords had been destroyed long ago. I looked at Jake, who was wrestling with Robert. This man I’d called disgusting for three years was now like a wild beast protecting its young, using his body to block the wrench Robert was swinging. “Charlotte!” I let out a heart-wrenching scream. “Why didn’t you tell me?! Why did you all hide it from me?!”
🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “NovelMaster” app 🔍 search for “357638”, and watch the full series ✨! #NovelMaster #浪漫Romance #现实主义Realistic #重生Reborn #校园School
Leave a Reply