From Pantry To MIT: Their Regret

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s face a mask of anger. He strode towards us, his eyes,

contempt. "Still trying to extort more from them? Honestly, your greed knows no bound

intact. "When have you ever acknowledged me as family, Dozier?" I shot back, my voice sharp. "When have any of you? Did you ever introduce me as yo

gets everything handed to her on a silver platter. I earned every penny, every scholarship, every shred of dignity I

t time I met him, three years ago. He had been so charming, so seemingly kind. He' d helped me with my homework, shared his lunch, even told me I could

es, the paint smudges on my own clothes from my latest project, but he didn' t see the tears that streamed down my face. He only saw Angelique' s. Her tears were always more potent, more real to them. He'd yelled a

ng," Dozier mumbled, his

ng my own physics project? Was it a misunderstanding when you told the entire school I was a gold-digger, trying to steal Angelique's inheritance? Was i

, not to her inheritance, but to her place in their hearts, a place that was rightfully mine.

eserved to be punished.' You watched as I went hungry, as my clothes became threadbare, as my knees bled from scrubbing their floors. You were my 'big brother,' Dozier. You were the o

and something else – embarrassment, perhaps, that their dirty laundry was being aired so publicly. But it wa

e shrill with anger, her perfectly coiffed hair tre

took a step back, my gaze sweeping over the whole sordid group. "I came to retrieve what little is mine and to say

wide and terrified, met mine. She looked genuinely afraid,

trong. "I am not your daughter, Cordell and Dona. I am not your sister, Dozier and Angelique. I want noth

houlder. It felt lighter than it ever had before, as if shedding the weight of their names had lifted a thousand pounds from my soul. I d

way the cloying scent of their hypocrisy, the bitter stench of

e. The Corbetts were gone, a toxic limb amputated. But there was another wound, a deeper one, festering beneath the surface. Asher. My childhood friend, my confid