When I looked up, my eyes were filled with determination: “Mr. Sterling, since my sister smashed your car, I hope she can pay for her actions. Mom and Dad and I won’t pay a dime. I hope she realizes what she did wrong.”
Blake thought for a moment and then nodded: “I can see that your family isn’t well–off. My lawyer will be here soon to discuss payment. I need to go.”
With that, his secretary followed him with bags in tow. Ashley, however, was frozen in place, having heard what I said.
She always thought that she was a romance novel heroine. Keeping to the innocent characteristics of the female lead in those novels, she was still a moocher at 23.
To get her to pay for a Maybach without relying on her parents be harder than climbing Mount Everest.
But did she really think I was going to give her a cent?
My family wasn’t rich, but we were well off, and we could afford
to pay. No way!
I glared at Ashley and walked out of the police station.
The police held back the hysterical Ashley, and I called Mom and Dad in the chaos: “Mom and Dad, I need to talk to you…”
As expected, Ashley cried when she got home.
Young and in debt $200,000. What a bright future.
Before Mom and Dad could even ask her what happened, she pointed at me and started blaming me: “Mom! Sis teamed up with outsiders to bully me! She embarr- assed me in front of everyone and now I’m $200,000 in debt!”
Mom was on the couch watching a soap opera. When she heard this, she put down the remote and looked at Ashley, who was crying: “Aren’t you annoying? You’re saying your sister embarrassed you in front of other people, but if you hadn’t smashed Mr. Sterling’s car and refused to apologize, would your sister have embarras- sed you?”
I sat nearby, looking at my lesson plans.
We spoiled Ashley so much. No one ever said a bad thing to her.
So for my
mom to criticize her so harshly, she would have thrown a fit.
Sure enough, she threw the fruit bowl off the coffee table: “How can you guys be like this? You’d rather side with an outsider than with me! Blake is just playing hard to get. He likes me but he’s afraid to say it! Did my sister have to go in front of him and try to make an impression?”
Dad chuckled: “Blake likes you? No one else can see that but you? We have a mirror at home. If you can’t see yourself clearly, then go look in it. Sometimes I wonder if your mom and I had a dumb kid.”
I cringed and thought of everything sad that had ever happened to me in the past 3 seconds.
Dad coddled Ashley the most.
Ashley’s eyes were red, and she whined, giving me the creeps: “Dad, why are you saying that?”
Dad rolled his eyes and started to bring up old stories: “The truth hurts. You’re in your twenties and you still think you’re a romance novel heroine. Even I’m handso- me, and I don’t think I’m the male lead in a novel. Who are you?”
Ashley saw that she couldn’t win against Dad, so she turned her anger on me: “Ashley! Did you say something to Mom and Dad to badmouth me?”
I pouted sarcastically: “Did you say something to Mom and Dad to badmouth me?”
Ashley was furious.
I looked up from my lesson plans: “Tell me, what did I say that badmouthed you? You went and smashed Mr. Sterling’s Maybach on your own. And now you want us to pay for it?”
“When you were little, you thought you could hit people to get the school bully’s attention. And now you’re still doing this stuff. Don’t you think you’re stupid?” Ashley was always strange.
When she was seven, she brought a homeless man home. When she was nine, she took a forty–year–old to a motel. When she was twelve, she lured a three–year–old to the suburbs.
From the time she was little, Mom and Dad and I cleaned up her messes.
Once, she thought she was the heroine in a tragic story, so she poured hot tea all over the school bully and slapped him.
She almost got killed, and my family had to pay the school bully a lot of money.
Ashley looked confused. The people who used to take care of her, love her, and stand by her no matter what had now become her enemies and wouldn’t even say a word of comfort.
The more she thought about it, the sadder she got, and she kicked over the coffee table: “Just you wait. I’ll prove it to you. Blake likes me! I’m the romance novel heroine!”
thewined her tear or
She wiped her tears and ran out, leaving
Mess and Mom, Dad, and I looking at each other.
Dad looked at the fruit and the broken coffee table and couldn’t help but swallow nervously. He asked tentatively: “Did we get her checked when she was born?”
Mom didn’t follow what Dad was thinking: “What?”
Dad pointed at the rotten fruit, his finger and voice trembling:
not… a
supermale, is she?”
