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Smiling, Mom takes four purposeful steps forward until she’s directly in front of me. Lifting her hand, she runs the back of her knuckles over my cheek, tenderly pushing a wayward strand of hair behind my ear. She makes a soft chuckling sound, and the smile slips from her pink lips a second before she grabs the end of my ponytail and yanks hard enough that my eyes instantly water. “Don’t ever risk your sister’s future by ignoring her calls or messages ever again. Penelope is the key to everything, and I will not let you ruin her chances of success because you’re a selfish little cunt. No one is interested in you, child. No one cares if you’re at that school, no one cares what grades you get or what you plan to do after you graduate. You are nothing and no one of consequence, and if you are the reason your sister’s grades slip to anything below perfect, I will make you pay for it. Do you understand?”
Tears fill my eyes, pain blooms from my head, and my heart hurts from the anger and truth in my mom’s words, but I don’t cry.
A bright smile curls the corners of her mouth, and I see the true evil beneath her beautiful façade. “I know you think you’re going to run off to England after graduation, but that won’t be happening unless you do as you’re told. From now on, you’ll attend all science, English, and math classes in your sister’s place.”
“But what about my own classes?” I cry before I can stop myself.
Sneering, Mom lets go of my hair and steps back, smoothing imaginary wrinkles from her skirt. “Honestly, Izabella, how many times do I have to say it? No one cares about you.”
With her words hanging in the air, she turns and walks out of my room without a backward glance, but hours later, her words are still playing on repeat in my head.
“No one cares about you.”
It’s not like this is new information to me or that I haven’t felt like that for years, but to have her spell it out so blatantly hurts so much more than I expected it would. Would she still feel this way if Dad had been named as the beneficiary of the Rhodes’ fortune, or granddad, like he should have been? Would I just be one of the Rhodes twins then, instead of the inconvenient, unwanted second child?
Crawling into bed, I try to ignore the what-ifs that are taunting me. It doesn’t matter how things would have been if Great-grandfather had picked someone else to jump through hoops for his money. He picked Penelope, and the consequences of that choice have been snowballing ever since, making my sister more important and me more insignificant with every passing day. It doesn’t matter how much I wish things were different, they’re not. I’ve spent too much time literally walking in my sister’s shoes, and I’m glad it was her name, not mine, on that godforsaken will, but I never agreed to give up my future for hers.
Leaving after graduation was the key to reclaiming my identity, and having Mom threaten that has rocked me to my core. I was scared when Gulliver called my name, but a part of me was excited to have one more person in the world see me and know I’m not my sister. Now I wish I could turn back time and answer Penelope’s stupid text message. Then maybe none of this would have happened.
A wave of hopelessness washes over me, and tonight I can’t ignore it. I can’t pretend or distract myself, so instead, I squeeze my eyes shut and let a handful of tears fall. In the morning, I’ll be braver, stronger, but for tonight, I allow myself to be weak.
10
GULLIVER
It’s been two days since I met Izabella. Two days since my fucked-up confrontation with Penelope and her mother. I thought about telling my dad, letting him know that his perfect little wannabe daughter-in-law is actually a lying bitch, but every time I’ve started to say anything, I couldn’t.
Something about the fear in Izabella’s eyes and the way her entire body was shaking when we got to her house has kept me silent. I’d planned to talk to her at school to check if she’s okay, but even though I’ve been looking for her, I haven’t seen her at all.
I’ve seen Penelope plenty. Everything is a fucking production with her. I doubt she takes a shit without taking a picture and posting it on her socials. Penelope is like a bad smell that you just can’t get rid of. She’s snuck into every fucking corner of this school, stinking the place up, waving at me in the hallways, circling me and my friends at lunch, and refusing to leave me alone no matter how many cruel ways I tell her I’m not fucking interested.
“How many of your classes is Penelope Rhodes in?” I ask my friends at lunchtime on Wednesday.
Laughing, Davis lazily cups the girl on his lap’s breast while she shamelessly grinds against his dick. “What the hell is going on with you lately? I thought you hated her? Have you changed your mind and decided to do what your dad wants and marry her after all?” he teases, his voice filled with amusement.
Reaching over, I slap him on the back of the head, causing him to jerk forward, toppling the girl perched on his knee to fall forward and land on her butt at his feet.
“Hey,” Davis cries, lifting the girl up.
“This isn’t a fucking club. Why don’t you keep the dry humping for when I’m not trying to talk to you? Now answer the fucking question,” I snap, glancing around the table at the rest of my friends.
“I don’t fucking know,” Davis says, pushing the girl into an empty seat. “Chemistry and French.”
“Yeah, me too. Anyone else have any other classes with her?” I ask.
“I have English and trig with her,” Candace says.
“Nah, I have English with her and Latin,” Kip argues before he takes a huge bite from the sandwich on his plate.
Unlike most high schools, Green Acres Academy doesn’t have the usual cafeteria slop. We have a team of chefs that prepare our meals to order. Nothing but the best for the crème de la crème of the upper classes.
“I have biology with her,” Thorn says offhandedly, his attention on his cell phone.
“You can’t. We don’t have biology together, and she’s in my class,” Molly says.
“You’re sure it’s Penelope Rhodes in your classes?” I ask, putting emphasis on her name, and hoping that one of them will mention Izabella.
“Who the fuck else would it be? The heiress makes sure everyone knows who she is.” Kip laughs.
