Chapter 1
596words
Sweat dampened my palms, threatening to soak through the gift bag I'd brought for my parents.
Emma stood beside me,
wearing that light blue dress I adored,
a gentle smile playing on her lips.
"Dad, Mom," I cleared my throat, "Emma and I are planning to get married."
Emma nodded slightly. "Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, our relationship is solid, and we're ready for the next step."
Dad lowered his newspaper and pushed his reading glasses up the bridge of his nose.
Mom's hands froze mid-peel, the apple forgotten in her grip.
They exchanged a loaded glance, silence hanging between them.
The only sound in the living room came from my brother Jason's video game.
"Marriage is wonderful," Mom finally said, passing the half-peeled apple to Jason. "But honey, there's something we need to discuss first."
My heart plummeted.
That tone—I knew it well. This was about Jason. Again.
Dad didn't bother with subtlety. "Your brother's getting married, and his fiancée wants a house. As the older brother, you need to help. Give Jason three hundred thousand for the down payment."
"Three hundred thousand?" I gasped. "That's everything Emma and I have saved by pinching pennies for years!"
"You're the older brother," Mom jumped in. "It's your duty to help. You're the capable one—waiting a few years won't hurt. Jason needs the support. If you don't help him, who will?"
"Delay my marriage?" My voice cracked. "What about Emma? What about the home we've been saving for?"
Jason finally looked up from his phone with an irritated sigh. "Dude, why the drama? Help me out now, and I'll have your back later."
His entitled expression made my blood boil.
Years of buried resentment finally erupted.
I found myself talking about that summer eight years ago—the one that changed everything.
"I scored 685 points—15 above Harvard's cutoff." My voice was steady, but my hand trembled around the teacup. "I sprinted home that day,
and laid my transcript right in front of you both.
You were ecstatic, bragging about having a Harvard student in the family.
Then came the day the letter arrived.
It wasn't from Harvard. Not even close!
Just some mediocre local college.
"Do you have any idea how that felt?" I stared them down. "I locked myself away for three days, completely lost. I had the scores—why wasn't I accepted? Then I checked my school files and found out someone had changed my college preferences!"
Mom rushed to explain, "We were struggling financially then, and Beijing was so expensive—"
"Bullshit!" I cut her off. "Sophomore year, I found a transfer receipt in Dad's desk. The same month you changed my application, our family received over a hundred grand! That was your deal with the school, wasn't it? I attend, and they pay you off."
Dad's face went pale. "You had no right to go through my—"
"I wasn't snooping!" My voice shook. "I found it while getting your social security card! If I hadn't seen it myself, I'd still be in the dark! It was never about money—it was about favoritism! You were already stockpiling cash for Jason's future!"
"We did it for your own good," Mom whispered, her voice fading. "Beijing was so far away..."
"My own good?" I laughed bitterly. "Then explain why, two years later, when Jason barely scraped 300 points and couldn't get into any decent school, you emptied your savings to send him to that overpriced diploma mill overseas? Wasn't that 'too far away'? Wasn't he 'unfamiliar' with foreign countries?"
The living room fell deathly silent.
