促銷資訊載入中...
I Got Into Harvard, but Mom Accused Me of Eloping
NovelShort
new
已完結
My sister and I were born four days apart. For as long as I could remember, Mom bought a birthday cake on my sister's birthday. When mine came, all I got was a bowl of plain noodles in water. "Just th...
章節（4）
第1章
My sister's birthday and mine are four days apart.
For as long as I can remember, Mom bought a cake on my sister's birthday.
On mine, there was only a bowl of plain broth noodles.
Mom said, "Just think of it as sharing your sister's birthday."
"And these broth noodles are made just for you. Your sister doesn't even get any."
From then on, my birthday was always just a bowl of broth noodles.
Until my senior year, when I earned early admission to Harvard.
I didn't tell my parents. I quietly went and sold my hair to keep the money for travel.
The four hundred dollars I got I hid under my pillow.
But the next day, the money was gone, and there was a fancy cake sitting on the table.
Mom gave me a cold look and said, "Your sister's coming home tonight for her birthday. That money you saved is perfect for buying her a cake."
I said stiffly, "Mom, that money was for my train ticket."
Her face went dark all at once. "So you've grown a spine, huh? Barely turned eighteen and already running off with some man?"
"You're planning to ditch your own family?"
Looking at her twisted face, I said in my heart: Yes, I really don't want it anymore...
...
Since I said nothing, Mom took my silence as guilt admitting it.
She raised her hand and slapped me, cursing, "How did I ever give birth to something as shameless as you?"
She put her whole strength into that slap. The sharp pain sent black spots swimming across my vision.
I held my cheek and, fighting the sting behind my nose, asked her, "Mom, why do you assume I bought a ticket to run off with a man?"
She gave me an "as if it could be anything else" look, like I really was that kind of person.
She jabbed hard at my forehead and said, "After your SATs, you go get a job at a local electronics plant."
"I raised you all these years. You'll earn some money for me first, for a few years, and then you can think about men."
Mom never cared about my studies.
All because my sister once pulled out a math test I'd scored an eighty on, and the whole family decided I was a bad student.
But that had been an old exam from the top national math competition. Our teacher had a few of us contest students try it.
I came first, forty points ahead of second place.
I explained it. They didn't believe me.
From then on, Mom was certain I'd never scrape by with more than a high school diploma.
She'd even worked out my "future" for me long ago.
I opened my mouth, and in the end I didn't tell her about the early admission.
She wouldn't believe me anyway.
And anyway... I wasn't planning to come back.
That four hundred dollars could stand for the cut.
I hoped that later, every time she thought of the cake she'd bought with it, she'd remember the things she said today.
I hoped that when the time came, she wouldn't regret it.
I turned and went back to my room.
Mom, still not satisfied with my attitude, banged things around and cursed, "What's with the face?"
"You expecting me to fork out money to send you to some community college?"
"You know what kind of family we are, don't you? Where's the spare cash for you to waste?"
My hand paused on the door. Looking at my mother's furious face, I only felt how absurd it all was.
For as long as I could remember, Mom said we weren't well off.
Yet my sister always wore designer clothes and went to a private international school.
She'd studied painting and dance since she was little, tens of thousands a year.
Two years ago, she got into a private arts college.
Tuition alone was thirty thousand a year.
Her monthly allowance was four thousand.
And this was the family with no money?
I shut the door and stopped looking at my mother.
I had to think of another way to get travel money, fast. Not long after, I heard the front door open.
I cracked my door open and saw my sister bounce in.
My father was right behind her.
Mom's voice was full of delight. "Elwin Gilbert, weren't you away on business? How'd you come back together with Kate Gilbert?"
My sister spoke loudly, as if afraid I wouldn't hear. "Dad said it was my birthday, that he'd get back no matter what."
"So I had him pick me up at the train station."
Dad looked at her, his eyes full of tenderness. "My precious girl's birthday. Of course I couldn't miss it."
In that moment, the three of them, happy together, drove into my heart like a dull blade.
Then my father suddenly asked, "Where's Kayla Gilbert?"
第2章
Something in my chest lit up for a second.
At least Dad still remembered me.
I was just about to walk out when I saw my mother's smile vanish in an instant. She rolled her eyes and snapped, "I wasn't finished telling you yet!"
Then she retold the whole afternoon, laying it on thicker than it had happened.
More than once I wanted to rush out and explain. I didn't.
I just watched my father quietly. I wanted to see how he would react.
His face grew darker and darker, and when she finished, he said with disgust, "How did I raise such a worthless thing."
"Makes her own mistake and still has the nerve to sulk. Fine. Nobody call her."
"Let her reflect on herself in her room."
In that moment, my heart went completely cold.
The last shred of hope I had for this family was gone.
Just then my sister glanced toward my room.
Through the crack in the door, our eyes met.
Hers were bright with open, undisguised triumph.
She hugged Dad's arm and said, "Oh, come on, Dad, don't be angry."
"You came home tonight just to celebrate my birthday. If you're unhappy, then I won't celebrate it at all."
He melted at once, all smiles. "That's my Kate, so thoughtful."
"Not like your sister. You can't get a word out of her if you beat it out with a stick!"
"Always throwing that face around. Anyone who didn't know better would think we owed her something."
My mother put on her own sour look. "If you ask me, she's pulling this stunt precisely because it's her sister's birthday."
"She just can't stand to see everyone happy."
Then she deliberately raised her voice. "If she keeps being this difficult, that bowl of birthday noodles for her birthday in a few days? I just won't make it!"
I slowly closed the door, shut my eyes, and forced down the sting behind them.
Outside, my sister laughed loudly. "Oh, you can't do that. My little sister looks forward to those birthday noodles every year."
My mother's voice turned tender. "You're always thinking of her. Every year you remind me to make her noodles for her birthday. And what does she do? Nothing."
"Sigh. If only she had half your sense."
I couldn't listen anymore. I put in my earphones and started watching an English movie.
I followed along with the actors, working my own pronunciation over and over.
Soon the lines pulled me in, and I had no attention left for the cozy little family scene outside.
I was right in the middle of it when my mother pushed the door open and came in.
She set down a slab of cake, its design no longer recognizable, on my desk, her face hard. "This piece is too much to finish. Lucky you."
I looked at the melted cream and remembered this was the cake bought with my hair.
And in the end I didn't even get the right to eat one intact slice.
I pushed the cake away and kept watching the movie. "I don't like cake."
No. At first I did like it.
But after the first time I begged her to buy me a birthday cake and got slapped across the face for it, I couldn't stomach it anymore.
Now even the sweet, cloying smell of cream is enough to make me feel like I'm choking, nauseated.
Right at this moment, I was only holding myself together, trying to keep one last scrap of dignity.
My sister leaned lazily against the doorframe and said in her usual joking tone, "Oh, Mom, I keep telling you, little sister's in her rebellious phase now."
"You go running after her to coax her like this and she won't appreciate it. She'll just take it further."
"See? Told you I'd be right."
My father passed by the door and gave a short laugh, one with a trace of contempt in it, and a trace of knowing.
My mother turned in an instant, like a cat with its tail stepped on.
She grabbed the cake and smashed it into my mouth, cream shooting up into my nose.
I stared at her wide-eyed and saw her staring back, eyes sharp, grinding out through her teeth, "Still got the nerve to act up?"
"I'd like to see what eating this cake is going to do to you."
第3章
Everything in my stomach was surging up, like something wanted to burst out through my throat.
But my mother clamped my mouth shut so hard I couldn't breathe.
My face went red with the effort, my lungs ready to explode.
Her face kept swelling in front of mine, until at last it slowly warped into the shape of a demon.
Everything before me blurred, and my mind went blank.
I slid off the chair to the floor.
The cake hit the ground, and the acid in my stomach came pouring out.
The last thing I heard before I passed out was my mother's terrified scream.
……
I woke to the sound of a doctor scolding.
"What kind of parents are you? The child is severely allergic to cream, and you didn't even know that?"
"Ten minutes later, and this child would have been gone!"
I opened my eyes slowly and saw my father seeing the doctor out with an apologetic smile.
My mother sat by the bed, her face dark.
My sister's eyes were red, as if she'd been crying.
She said, "Mom, it's all my fault. I shouldn't have said those things to set you off."
My mother shook her head. "It's not your fault. She's just impossible."
"She knew perfectly well she was allergic, and she didn't tell me."
"She did it on purpose, to hurt me, to get back at me."
"Mom, no, she's not like that."
"How is she not? She blames me for ruining her little dream of running off with some man, so she wants to torment me."
"She thinks I care? I wouldn't shed a single tear even if she died."
My heart was already empty. Over twenty years I had felt, deep in my bones, how little my mother liked me.
So why did hearing those words still hurt?
When my father came in, he saw me lying there awake, staring at nothing.
He patted my mother lightly and frowned. "Stop with the angry talk. Kayla's awake."
I saw my mother's shoulders stiffen for a moment.
But she quickly turned her head, shot me a glare, then stood and walked out without looking back.
Before she left, she said, "I'm never making you birthday noodles again."
My sister ran after her.
Before she left, she told my father to take good care of me.
My father looked pleased. "If only your sister had half her sense."
He looked at me, his face cold and hard. "When we get home, apologize to your mother. Stop making her angry."
"I'm away on business all year. She takes care of you two girls on her own. It's hard on her."
"You're not a child anymore. You need to learn some gratitude."
I said nothing. My mind just turned over slowly.
Hard on her, I thought. How exactly?
From the time I was little, my parents left me back in the old hometown.
My grandmother raised me with her own hands.
It wasn't until I finished elementary school, when Grandmother died, that they took me in.
My mother said having me at home would hurt my sister's studies.
So the moment school started, she put me in the dorms.
Boarding students all ate in the cafeteria.
Three hundred twenty a month.
Every meal balanced, meat and vegetables, proper nutrition.
But my mother thought it was too expensive, so she went to the school and made a scene until she'd won me my "freedom to eat off street stalls."
She gave me a hundred and fifty a month and expected me to be grateful for it. "Aren't you happy? Other kids don't even get to eat from street stalls!"
What she didn't know was that street food isn't clean.
Over those three years, my stomach was badly damaged.
The year I was a junior, my sister went to college in the city.
My father was transferred to the state office.
My mother, claiming she was too scared to be alone, forced me to come home and keep her company as a day student.
But when I got out of evening study, there was never a hot meal waiting.
There was only ever plain noodles and greens in the house.
For three years, my dinner was always plain noodles in water at nine thirty.
So when I heard my mother say she'd never make me birthday noodles again, I wasn't sad at all.
If anything, something in me eased.
Today, at last, I wouldn't have to face that bowl of birthday noodles with no fat, no flavor.
Wouldn't have to force out a "thank you, Mom."
第4章
When I still wouldn't speak, my father finally lost his temper. "What exactly do you want? To stay mute your whole life?"
I looked at him, thought about how I was about to leave, and lost all desire to keep tangling with them.
Calmly, I said, "I understand. I'll apologize."
Only then did his brow smooth out.
"That's more like it," he said.
We went home.
The moment we stepped inside, he shoved me forward, signaling me to apologize to my mother.
"I'm sorry," I said.
Even though I had no idea what I'd done wrong.
My mother's eyes were full of smugness, as if she'd won again.
My sister chimed in too. "Kayla, if you'd been this obedient from the start, Mom wouldn't have gotten so upset."
My mother gave a snort. "If only she had half your sense."
Watching the two of them so cozy together, mother and daughter, I found that my heart had gone numb, without the slightest feeling.
Early the next morning I went to school.
To earn some money, I asked Ms. Pruitt, my homeroom teacher, for time off, wanting to take a few days of temporary work.
Ms. Pruitt looked at my hair, hacked into ragged patches, and her eyes reddened.
She handed me an envelope. Inside was a thick stack of two thousand dollars.
Then she passed me a new backpack.
It was heavy. When I opened it, there were actually two new sets of clothes and a pair of shoes.
And a secondhand phone.
I shook my head and set everything on the desk. "Ms. Pruitt, I can't take this."
She said gently, "Keep it. You've got early admission to Harvard. The school will give the teacher a bonus for it too. This is nothing."
"And once you get to New York, get a local SIM card and let me know you made it safe."
I hadn't cried when my mother forced me to swallow that cake.
I hadn't cried when my whole family tore me down.
But now, holding that new backpack in my hands, the tears came, falling in big heavy drops.
"Ms. Pruitt, thank you," I choked out.
For three years, she had seen every one of my hardships.
But she never said a word about them.
She only ever found reasons to slip me things.
New stationery when I ranked first.
New study guides when I went to competitions.
In winter, a padded coat her daughter had outgrown, still brand new.
More often, it was the hot food in her lunchbox.
She always said her husband had packed too much, and that I had to help her out so it wouldn't go to waste.
For three years, she carefully guarded my dignity.
I kept all of it in my heart.
Ms. Pruitt held my hand and said softly, "The interview matters."
"Study hard these next few days. Don't let people and things that aren't worth it get to you."
She paused, then her voice weighted, earnest. "Kayla, your future is out there."
My future is out there.
The words poured through me like scalding water.
I nodded hard and bowed to her, deeply.
On the way home with the backpack, I kept thinking about where I could hide it so no one would find it.
But when I got back, the house was empty.
There were twenty dollars on the table.
Under the twenty was a note. "Your dad and I took your sister on a trip. We'll make up your birthday noodles when we're back."
"Spend this carefully. There are noodles and greens in the fridge."
I held the thin twenty in my hand and wanted so badly to say I didn't need the birthday noodles anymore.
But it seemed she had never needed to hear anything I said.
Over the next few days, without them around, I felt lighter than ever.
On the morning of the fourth day, I picked up my packed bags and took one last look at the home where I'd lived for over a decade.
Then I turned and left, without a moment's hesitation.