My sister “forgot” to put on clothes again and rushed out of her bedroom stark naked. She crashed straight into my boyfriend’s arms. Lifting her gorgeous face, she looked up at him with a naive, clueless smile. That was exactly how my last five boyfriends disappeared. Four of them had immediate physical reactions on the spot, so I slapped them and broke up with them. The other one managed to keep his cool, but in the middle of the night, he climbed up the balcony with his bare hands and sneaked into my sister’s bed. When I cried to my parents about it, they brushed it off. “Bianca is just a bit airheaded! She just forgot to put on clothes!” “If she did it on purpose, would she run around naked every single time?” With such biased, unreasonable parents, I didn’t dare to date anyone for four years. Until I met Ethan Vance. He was the most upright and intelligent man I had ever known. When we started discussing marriage, I brought him home to meet my parents. Before he arrived, I begged Bianca repeatedly, “Please, just wear some clothes!” Bianca nodded obediently. But the moment my boyfriend walked through the door, Bianca was running around the house naked again. Seeing the triumphant smirk at the corner of her mouth, I suddenly realized her “cluelessness” was just an act put on entirely for me. Too bad for her, my boyfriend hated idiots more than anything.
I had just brought Ethan through the front door. Suddenly, the bedroom door clicked open. Bianca rushed out, completely naked. Acting as if she had absolutely no idea there was a guest in the living room, she crashed straight into Ethan’s chest. “Oh my gosh!” She gasped, hurriedly covering her chest, her eyes welling up with tears instantly. “I’m so sorry… I forgot we had company.” She looked up, her wide, misty eyes staring helplessly at Ethan. That naive, innocent look—I had seen it way too many times. That was exactly how my first five boyfriends had fallen into her trap. “What the hell?! Do you keep a naked psycho in this house?!” Ethan closed his eyes instantly. Relying on his years of Taekwondo training, he delivered a swift, powerful kick that sent Bianca flying onto the floor. A loud thud echoed through the hallway, hard enough to shake dust off the walls. The air in the hallway froze for two seconds. Then came Bianca’s sharp, hysterical crying. “What happened? What’s going on?” My mother, Eleanor, rushed out of the master bedroom wearing an apron, still holding some half-folded laundry. My father, Richard, also poked his head out from the balcony. Ethan hid behind me, keeping his eyes squeezed shut, not daring to open them. “I’m fine. I just kicked a crazy exhibitionist. But that crazy chick might be in bad shape,” Ethan said, his voice cold as ice. On the floor, Bianca held her chest with one hand and covered her lower body with the other, sobbing uncontrollably. She bit her lower lip, her eyes filled with tears, looking utterly pathetic and helpless. “Ethan, you kicked me… It hurts so bad.” Her voice was soft and sweet, trembling just the right amount. “I just have a bad memory. I forgot we had a guest over. Please don’t be mad at me, okay?” As she spoke, she shrunk back like a frightened little rabbit. Eleanor immediately rushed over to hug her protectively, wrapping a coat around her. “You silly girl, why are you running around naked again? And Chloe, you are to blame too! You know your sister is forgetful. Before you brought an outsider home, why didn’t you go to her room and check on her first?” The first wave of moral gaslighting had landed precisely on me. I looked at Eleanor’s face, which took it all for granted. As usual, she blamed me for everything. Bianca was always the pure, innocent one who just made silly mistakes. And I, as the younger sister, was expected to clean up her messes and prevent her disasters at all times. “Mother, I told her three times before I came home,” I stated flatly. Bianca’s tears spilled over. “Chloe, I’m so sorry. I really didn’t mean to. I was just thinking about something else and got distracted…” She looked up at Ethan, her eyes shimmering like water. “Ethan, please don’t blame Chloe. It’s all my fault for being so stupid.” A textbook “pick-me girl” performance. First admit guilt, then show vulnerability, and finally, “defend” me to highlight her kindness and my pettiness. My first two boyfriends had died under this exact combo. I turned to look at Ethan. I wanted to see if his eyes, which were usually as clear as mountain springs, could see through this bitch. Ethan looked at her. There was no warmth in his eyes. He looked at her as if he were watching a poorly acted comedy show. “You really are stupid,” Ethan said. His voice wasn’t loud, but every word was crystal clear. Bianca froze. Eleanor froze, too. They probably never expected anyone to step right on her face when she offered herself up as a “clueless beauty.” “Since you knew there was an adult male coming over, and you still managed to ‘forget’ to wear clothes… that’s not being forgetful. That’s a severe lack of basic life skills,” Ethan said, stuffing his hands into his coat pockets and looking down at Bianca. The silence in the room was deafening. Bianca’s face, which was wearing a delicate “no-makeup” makeup look, instantly lost all color. She froze on the spot, even forgetting to shed her tears. “How dare you speak to her like that!” Richard couldn’t hold back anymore. He marched over and pointed a finger at Ethan. “This is my house! What’s wrong with my daughter not wearing clothes in her own home? You’re an outsider. You got a free show, and now you’re throwing a tantrum?” “Let me correct you,” Ethan said, meeting Richard’s gaze without flinching. “First, I didn’t look. That flat body of hers is nowhere near my type.” “Second, she opened the door herself, and the hallway is a common area. If you think it’s good parenting to let your daughter run around naked in common areas, then I seriously question your family’s values.” He turned to me. “Chloe, where is your coat?” I pointed to the coat on the sofa. Ethan walked over, picked it up, and draped it over my shoulders, gently fixing my hair. “Let’s go. The air in here is making me sick.” I looked at my parents’ livid faces and Bianca, who looked like she was about to collapse. Instead of the panic I used to feel, a wave of unprecedented satisfaction washed over me. “Okay.” I put on my coat and followed him out. Eleanor was shaking with rage behind us. “Chloe! If you dare to walk out of this door with him today, don’t you ever call me Mother again!” I stopped walking. But I didn’t turn around. “Whatever.” Ethan pulled the door open, and a gust of cold winter wind rushed in. “Chloe, Mother’s just saying that because she’s angry! You know she has a soft heart!” Bianca screamed from behind. Her voice had lost its soft, sweet tone and was filled with obvious panic. Ethan let out a low chuckle. “Hear that?” he whispered to me, looking down. “Even a cornered rat will show its teeth when it’s desperate.”
“You were pretty brutal back there,” I said as I buckled my seatbelt in the passenger seat. Ethan started the car, his long fingers resting on the steering wheel. “Brutal? I was just stating facts. If she were truly stupid, she wouldn’t have known to get angry when I insulted her. She should have agreed with my analysis.” He turned the steering wheel and drove out of the neighborhood. “Her acting skills are worse than the fresh grads working at my reception desk.” I looked out the window at the passing streetlights. The heavy stone that had weighed on my chest for over twenty years felt like it had finally been cracked open. Since we were kids, Bianca had always been the center of the universe. When she ruined my homework, Eleanor would say, “Your sister is just clumsy. Can’t you just write it again?” When she took the dress I liked, Richard would say, “Your sister loves pretty things. Why can’t you just let her have it?” Even when I started dating, Bianca only had to act innocent and shed a few tears in front of my boyfriends. Then, those guys would find her adorable and think I was being bitter and mean. No one had ever torn off her mask as ruthlessly as Ethan did. My phone kept buzzing in my bag. I pulled it out. It was a string of voice messages from Eleanor, one after another. The red notification dots were glaring. I tapped the first one. “Chloe! Have you lost your mind?! What kind of classless man are you dating? How dare he talk to your sister like that! Bianca has never heard a harsh word in her life, and today she was so humiliated she’s crying under her blanket, hyperventilating!” I listened to it with a blank face. Then I tapped the second one. “You make that Vance guy come back and apologize to your sister right now! Otherwise, don’t you ever come back to this house. We raised you and fed you, not for you to team up with some stranger to bully your sister!” Ethan heard every word clearly from the driver’s seat. He let out a cold sneer. “Does your mother only watch cheap soap operas? That script is straight out of a bad 90s drama.” I locked my phone screen and tossed it back into my bag. “I’m used to it.” “Being used to it doesn’t make it right.” Ethan stopped the car at a red light and turned to look at me. “Are you planning on taking this forever?” I looked into his clear, deep eyes. “No,” I said. “I want her to pay back everything she owes me, with interest.” The corner of Ethan’s mouth curved into a beautiful smirk. “Let me know if you need any help. I love watching fake people crash and burn.” The next morning. I was in the middle of a meeting at work when the receptionist, Lily, sent me a Snapchat message. “Chloe, your sister is here to see you. She’s waiting at the front desk.” I frowned. Bianca rarely came to my office. She always complained that my fast-paced tech company was too depressing. I walked out of the meeting room and headed to the lobby. Bianca was wearing a classy tweed jacket, holding a fancy thermos in her hand. Seeing me, she immediately walked up. “Chloe, are you done with work?” Her voice was as soft as ever, with no trace of yesterday’s humiliation. “What do you want?” I didn’t reach for the thermos. Bianca didn’t seem embarrassed. She set the thermos down on the reception desk. “Mother was so upset she couldn’t sleep last night. I was thinking… yesterday’s incident was indeed caused by my forgetfulness, and Ethan might have misunderstood me.” She tilted her head slightly, exposing her slim, fair neck. “I made some chicken soup. I wanted you to give it to Ethan. Consider it my apology to him.” Several colleagues passing by turned to look at us. To outsiders, she looked like a sweet, caring older sister trying to patch things up for her difficult younger sister. Looking at her performance, I felt a wave of nausea. “No thanks. He doesn’t drink things from questionable sources.” Bianca’s eyes instantly welled with tears again. “Chloe, are you still mad at me? I know Ethan is amazing, and you’re worried I might steal him from you. But I really don’t have those intentions.” Her voice wasn’t loud, but it was just loud enough for the receptionist and several passing coworkers to hear. This was her classic move: preemptive strike. By being the first to say “you’re worried I might steal him,” no matter what I said next, I would look insecure and jealous. If this were the old me, I would have dragged her aside to compromise just to save face. But not today. I took out my phone, opened the voice recorder app, and placed it face-up on the reception desk. “Keep going,” I said, looking at her. “Tell me more about how you plan on stealing him. Go into detail.”
Bianca’s smile froze on her face. She clearly didn’t expect me to just stop caring about my reputation, let alone display the recording screen right in front of her. “Chloe… what are you doing?” Her voice faltered, and her eyes kept darting toward my phone screen. “Since you love acting in public so much, let’s make it a full production.” I leaned against the reception desk, crossing my arms. “Didn’t you say I’m afraid of you stealing him? Prove it to us. How are you going to do it? With your cheap, unbuttoned pajamas, or with this soup that probably has god-knows-what in it?” A few coworkers watching nearby let out soft chuckles. People in tech companies never lacked a nose for drama. Bianca understood my sarcasm, and her face flushed crimson. “Chloe Miller, you’ve gone too far!” She finally dropped the act, her tears vanishing in an instant. “I came here out of the goodness of my heart to bring you guys something, and you’re trying to intimidate me with a recording?” She reached out to grab my phone. I quickly snatched it away. “Why aren’t you crying anymore?” I looked at her coldly. “Where’s your helpless airhead filter? Where’s that innocent, victimized look? Giving up on the act so soon?” Bianca gritted her teeth in anger. But with so many eyes on her, she had to suppress her rage. “Fine, Chloe. You think that Vance guy can protect you forever, don’t you?” She leaned in close, whispering so only the two of us could hear. “Who do you think you are? Since we were kids, whenever I wanted something, Mom and Dad gave it to me.” “Your last two exes? I barely had to wiggle my finger and they came begging like dogs. You think Ethan Vance is any different?” “Men are all the same. Just you wait. I’ll have him begging on his knees to lick my toes sooner or later.” She thought I had stopped the recording. She thought whispering made her safe. But she didn’t know that my phone was the latest model with incredible audio capture. And she definitely didn’t know that the recording app was still running in the background even though the screen had gone black. Looking at her face, slightly distorted by jealousy and competitive rage, I found her incredibly pathetic. “Sure,” I said, taking a step back to create distance. “I’ll be waiting.” Bianca sneered, picked up the thermos from the desk, and stomped away in her high heels. I picked up my phone and stopped the recording. Looking at the 3-minute-and-12-second audio file on my screen, I smiled. My first card was in my hand. After work. Ethan came to pick me up. His car was parked by the curb, and he was holding a hot latte. “You look exhausted. Did your brainless sister disgust you again?” He handed me the coffee and opened the passenger door for me. I took a sip of the coffee. “She came to my office to deliver soup today, and she officially declared war.” I pulled out my phone and played the audio. Bianca’s voice echoed in the quiet car: “I’ll have him begging on his knees to lick my toes sooner or later.” After listening, Ethan frowned in disgust. “Does she have any hygiene awareness? Licking toes can lead to fungal infections. That’s disgusting.” I couldn’t help but burst into laughter. The stress that had built up all day vanished instantly because of his words. “You’re not mad?” I asked. “Why would I be mad? Being targeted by an idiot just proves my taste is good.” Ethan started the car. “But still, if we don’t crush people like her once and for all, she’ll keep buzzing around like a fly.” His long fingers tapped the steering wheel. “When do you want to pull the trigger?” “Christmas,” I said, looking at the city lights outside. “On Christmas, all our extended family will be there. Bianca cares about her ‘perfect daughter’ image in front of the relatives more than anything. I want to strip her mask off in front of everyone.” Ethan glanced at me. His eyes held unedited admiration. “Great plan.” “Need any technical support? Like casting this audio onto the TV during Christmas dinner?” “No need,” I shook my head. “That’s not enough. I need more evidence to prove she isn’t just targeting me, but that she’s a pathological liar.” There were still two weeks until Christmas. During those two weeks, Bianca was surprisingly quiet. She didn’t cause any drama, didn’t post any passive-aggressive things on Snapchat, and didn’t even bother me. Eleanor called me twice. She told me in a harsh tone that I had to come home for Christmas dinner, and I was absolutely not allowed to bring Ethan. “That boyfriend of yours has no manners. I will not allow him in our house!” I agreed. Because I knew this was just the calm before the storm. A person like Bianca could never let things go. She was definitely planning something big. The day before Christmas. I was called back to the house to help wrap Christmas gifts. In reality, Eleanor just wanted to assert her maternal authority by making me do manual labor. As soon as I walked into the kitchen, I heard Bianca’s dramatic gasp from the living room. “Oh my gosh! How… how did this happen?!”
I wiped my hands and walked out of the kitchen. Shattered porcelain lay scattered all over the living room rug. It was the vintage Tiffany & Co. cup set I had prepared as a Christmas gift for Ethan’s grandmother. I had spent half a month’s salary and used several connections to get it. Now, it was just a pile of worthless trash. Bianca stood nearby, holding the lid of the packaging box, looking terrified and lost. “Chloe, I’m so sorry! I didn’t know this box had something so expensive in it… I just wanted to help you clean up the table, and my hand slipped…” She covered her mouth as tears instantly streamed down her face. Eleanor rushed out of the bedroom when she heard the noise. Seeing the shattered pieces and Bianca crying like a victim, she immediately understood what had happened. But she didn’t blame Bianca. Instead, she turned to me, her eyebrows knitted closely. “Why did you leave something so expensive lying around? You know your sister is clumsy! Now that it’s broken, who are you going to blame?” The same old excuse. The same twisted logic. I didn’t say a word. I just stared at the broken porcelain on the floor. That was the exact vintage set Ethan’s Nana loved. I had planned to present it to her during my Christmas visit. “Chloe, how much was it? I’ll pay you back, okay?” Bianca walked over, gently tugging at my sleeve. “Please don’t be mad at me. I really didn’t mean to. I’ll use my savings to pay you back.” “Pay me back? With what?” I pulled my arm away and looked at her coldly. “This is a rare vintage set. You couldn’t find another one even if you had the money.” “It’s just a stupid cup set!” Richard walked out of the study. He couldn’t stand seeing me give his favorite daughter a hard time. “Chloe, that’s enough! Your sister already apologized. What more do you want? Ruining a family gathering over a cup set—where are your manners?!” Manners. Generosity. Yes, those were the words I had heard the most growing up. Because I was the younger sister, because I was smart, and because I was rational. So I had to be the bigger person. I had to tolerate all of Bianca’s stupidity and destruction. “I’m not making a big deal out of it,” I said, taking a deep breath as I picked up the pieces one by one and put them into a trash bag. “But this was meant for my boyfriend’s family. Since you all think it’s not a big deal, you can explain it to Ethan yourselves.” Hearing Ethan’s name, a flash of smugness crossed Bianca’s eyes. She thought that since the gift was ruined, I wouldn’t be able to go to the Vance family’s Christmas party. She thought Ethan would think I was classless and lose interest in me. That was her plan. Unfortunately, she got one thing wrong. I tied the trash bag and held it in my hand. “Mother, what time are Uncle Robert and Aunt Margaret arriving for Christmas dinner tomorrow?” Eleanor was taken aback, then said crossly, “We eat at noon. Why? Are you planning to show everyone your attitude?” “No,” I smiled slightly. “Tomorrow, I’m going to make sure everyone has a great time.” The next day, 11:00 AM. The relatives started arriving. Robert, Margaret, and several cousins we were close with. The living room was filled with laughter and “Merry Christmas” wishes. Bianca was wearing a gorgeous red knit dress with a full face of perfect makeup, floating around like a social butterfly. “Try these nuts. I bought them specifically for you.” “You look so beautiful today. That coat really suits you.” The relatives were charmed. “Bianca is getting more mature and sensible by the day. Whoever marries her will be the luckiest man alive,” Margaret praised with a laugh. “I know, right? Bianca is not only gorgeous but has such a sweet personality,” another aunt agreed, then turned her eyes to me as I sat quietly in the corner, sipping water. “Unlike Chloe. She’s been a quiet, cold girl since she was a kid. Not very sweet. Chloe, why isn’t your boyfriend here with you? Didn’t you say he was loaded?” The spotlight was finally on me. Bianca’s eyes lit up. She immediately wiped the smile off her face, replacing it with a worried, hesitant expression. “Please don’t bring him up.” Bianca sighed, sitting down next to Margaret. “That man… has a really weird temper. When he came over last time, he was not only rude, but he also… he yelled at me. Chloe is so obsessed with him she won’t even listen to Mother and Father anymore.” The relatives gasped. “Are you serious?” Robert frowned, looking at Richard. Richard let out a cold grunt, which was as good as confirming it. “Chloe, I have to say something here,” Robert said, instantly taking on his self-righteous Robert persona. “For a girl, a man’s character is the most important thing. A man who doesn’t respect your parents and bullies your sister should be dumped immediately!” “Exactly,” Margaret chimed in. “Your sister is so sweet, and he still yelled at her? He probably has anger issues. Don’t let his money blind you.” The entire living room turned into an intervention against me. Eleanor sat on the sofa, looking pleased. She seemed to think that the pressure from the relatives would finally make me bow my head and apologize. I set my water glass down. “Father, Mother.” “You guys have always believed Bianca is just a sweet, naive girl who makes silly mistakes.” I pulled a black voice recorder from my pocket and held it up. “Since everyone thinks she’s so innocent…” “Why don’t we listen to what she says when no one is watching?”
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