The $1,500 Allowance Was a Lie

My parents paid our allowance by test score. The winner got $1,500 a month. The loser got nothing. The scoring started the day I was born. Back then the prize wasn't money.

It was milk. Five points a day, or you went hungry. Eighteen years later, the prize turned into $1,500 a month.

I spent every one of those years sure the money was going to my sister. Then I walked up to Station 2 in the dining hall to interview for a job. $7.25 an hour. One opening.

My twin sister was already standing there. Her voice came out scraped raw.

And she said the most shocking thing anyone has ever said to me. "Is this fun for you, Wren?" "You pull $1,500 a month and you still came down here to take a $7.25anhour job away from me.

Just to rub my face in it." Everything in me locked up. "What $1,500?" The words were out before I could stop them. "Mom and Dad give that to you." Reese went quiet.

And somewhere behind my ribs, something started lining up. Unless that money was never meant for either of us. Not from the very start. Chapter 1 Reese and I are twins.

Our parents were the two most famous teachers in the district. District Teacher of the Year, several years running. Their photo ran in the education section of the local paper.

They lived by one line. "Competition creates pressure. Pressure creates effort. Effort creates success." So from the day we were born, my sister and I were in a contest.

Other babies roll over, sit up, crawl. That's nature. For us it was scored. Whoever did it first got a point. Five points in a day earned you milk.

Miss the five, and you went hungry until tomorrow. Eighteen years of it.

Two kids clawing at each other over a full stomach, treating each other like enemies, because that was the only way to eat. Then the acceptance letter showed up in our mailbox.

Our parents made us a promise, and they made it sound like a ceremony. "Once you two start college, we'll give each of you $1,500 a month." We both cried right there in the kitchen.

We thought we'd finally served our sentence. The day before movein, they set two identical exams on the table. "We wrote these ourselves.

Everything on here is the important material from four years of high school. You finish them, you hand them in, we grade them and tell you the results." "Take it seriously.

This decides who gets the first month's allowance." "What is that supposed to mean?" I asked. They had the answer loaded. "We looked into it.

The four years of college are when kids go bad. So for your own good, on the last day of every month we'll write you an exam on your own major." "Scores come back that day.

Money goes out the next." "Whoever scores higher takes the $1,500. Whoever scores lower gets nothing." Reese and I stared. Then we said it at the same time. "How is that fair?

You promised us. $1,500 a month, each of us, once we got to college. You can't just take it back!" Dad's face went flat and dark. "How is it fair? I'm your father.

You girls eat my food and sleep under my roof, so you do what I tell you." "And this is for your own good. If you don't like it, then neither of you gets a dollar." We caved. Again.

Starting college with no money is like holding your breath. You can only do it for so long. Movein week came. I didn't have a cent. My parents told me why.

Chapter 2 "You scored two points lower than your sister, Wren. So there's no allowance for you this month." I begged them not to do it. Nothing landed.

All I had was the $400 tucked into the lining of my suitcase. Birthday money, holiday money, ones and fives saved up over eighteen years.

To stretch it, I lived on the dollar bagels they sold outside the dining hall. Mornings, if I was feeling generous with myself, I added a hardboiled egg.

An empty stomach meant cramps. Cramps meant medicine. Medicine meant money I didn't have. My face went gray. My jeans started sliding off my hips.

My roommates caught on fast. "Wren, do your parents not have the money?" one of them asked, careful about it. "You eat almost nothing.

You're going to land yourself in student health." I laughed, and it came out wrong. Then I gave them the short version of the system I grew up in. Nobody said anything for a second.

Then they were all looking at me the way you look at bad news. "Did you file your FAFSA? For aid?" I shook my head. "I can't." "At my age I count as a dependent student.

The form needs my parents' tax returns." "They won't hand them over." One of them blinked at me. "Why not?" "Because the District Teacher of the Year can't have a daughter applying for financial aid." I pulled one side of my mouth up. "It'd be embarrassing." After that day, my roommates fed me constantly, always with a reason attached. "Wren, this milk expires tomorrow and I hate milk.

Drink it." "Wren, this has egg in it. I'm allergic. It's yours." "Wren, these came off my family's tree. Way too sour for me.

You take them." It made me warm and it made me ache at the same time. Everything I never got at home, I got in that room. $400. Careful doesn't make it cover a month.

Two weeks in and some change, my account was down to $50. Fourteen days until the exam. Fourteen days, $50. $3.57 a day. I looked into those loan apps.

Every one of them wanted pay stubs and a credit history. I had neither. So I called my mother. First call, no answer. Second one, declined. The third one went through.

She started in before I got a word out. "Are you ever going to stop? Do you have any idea how busy your father and I are?

You call like somebody's dying." I made my voice as small as it would go. "Mom, I don't have money for food." "Please. Just a little.

Anything." "I can't keep going like this." I thought there was a limit to how cold a parent could be once their kid said that out loud. There wasn't. "Then figure it out.

Whose fault is it your score came in under your sister's?" "You want money, score higher at the end of the month. Otherwise don't even ask." I let three seconds go by.

When I spoke, it came out quiet. "Mom." "In that newspaper piece, you said a teacher's first job is making sure no kid goes hungry." "Was that only about other people's kids?" The line went silent for half a beat.

Then the click. She was gone. Everything I'd been holding came up at once. I stood in the stairwell and the tears came in fat drops, one after another. I have never felt that small.

I couldn't work it out. I still can't. Other people's parents lie awake over whether their kid is cold or hungry somewhere.

Mine knew their daughter was barely getting through the day, and watched. I went back to the dorm with my eyes still swollen. My roommates took one look and closed in around me.

I told them what happened. They tried to press cash into my hands right there. I said no. Not because I'm proud. Because by then I'd been staring at my contacts for a long time.

There was a number in there. In eighteen years I had never once been the one to call it. Call, or keep starving? Chapter 3 I didn't want money getting on a friendship that clean.

My roommates gave up and switched to advice. "What about your sister? She's your twin. She can't be that cold about it." "Right? Your parents hand her $1,500 a month.

Asking for $200 isn't crazy." I hesitated. "The thing is, my sister and I aren't close." Years of being scored against each other will do that.

By then Reese and I were closer to enemies than family. "Just try," one of them said. "Maybe she's not who you think she is." I set my jaw and called her.

She picked up already annoyed. "Spit it out. Don't waste my time." My roommates were sitting right next to me. They heard every word. My face went hot.

I pushed it out anyway, quietly. "Reese, could you lend me $200?" "I'll pay you back next month." Then she detonated. "You're asking me for money?

Do you have any shame left, Wren?" "You blow through everything you've got and then come crawling to me?" "Get a life." The call cut off before I could answer. My nose stung.

I held the tears where they were. There's something I missed that day. After she finished yelling, it took her a long time to get her breath back. I thought she was angry.

My roommates lost it. "Oh my God. What is wrong with her?

She could have just said no instead of talking to you like that." "I'm done with people like that. $1,500 a month and she won't float her own sister $200." "And she says you blow through money?

Is she blind? You've been chewing dayold bagels for a week straight." I stayed quiet. Angry and hurt, both at once. Honestly, though, none of it surprised me.

She had been like that for as long as I could remember. Whatever the situation, she came in swinging first and asked questions never.

It was the only way the two of us knew how to talk. A minute later, one of my roommates turned her phone around. A job listing. "This place needs weekend help.

Cash at the end of the shift. $120 a day." I grabbed it like a rope off the side of a boat. Then I hugged her and thanked her about nine times.

She laughed it off. "Just help me with the lecture problem sets." Two days of it. Brutal. I made $240. On two hundred and change, I dragged myself through another two weeks.

Every day was arithmetic. By the time it ran out, the end of the month was sitting on top of me. Then, between classes, the Student Employment Office sent out a mass email.

Oncampus student jobs, open for applications. On campus. Longterm. I nearly came out of my seat. I opened the attachment and wrote to every contact on the list.

All of it went nowhere. The jobs that paid better were gone in an hour. The ones with flexible hours needed someone who wasn't in class all day. Turned down. Turned down.

Turned down. I was running out of road. Right when I was ready to quit, one more listing showed up on the list. Dining hall assistant. $7.25 an hour. Free meals on shift.

One opening. I saw the words "free meals" and my eyes went hot. That job was the only road I had left.

I texted the number in the email that same second, terrified somebody would get there first. "Hi, I'd like to apply for the dining hall assistant position." Sent.

A line came up at the top of the screen. Typing. It stayed lit for a long time. Then it went dark. Then again. Then a third time.

I watched it blink on and off while my stomach hollowed out. Five minutes later, the reply came.

Chapter 4 "Sorry, another student got to me a few minutes before you did." My chest closed up. I started promising things. "Could you give me a chance?

I work fast, I'll take anything, I won't slack off and I won't cause you any trouble." A long time went by.

Then: "Come to Station 2 tomorrow after your noon class and we'll talk." The next day I sat through class watching the clock.

Right before it ended, a notice came in from the department. "Everyone stays after this class. Mandatory firstyear seminar checkin. Absences go on record." I went numb.

I wanted to run. I didn't dare. You get one absence in that course per semester. Two and you fail. Failing means retaking it. Retaking it costs money.

I was counting out dollar bagels. Halfway through the meeting I couldn't sit still.

I kept flipping my phone over to check the time. "It's fine, don't panic," my roommate whispered. "This'll be over any second." It wasn't. It ran long.

The second they let us go, I grabbed my books and ran for the dining hall. Twenty minutes late. That was it. The job was gone.

I walked up to Station 2 anyway. "Hi, I'm here about the student position. Who should I be looking for?" The woman behind the counter looked me up and down. "Take a seat, hon.

The manager's still interviewing someone else." I sat in a plastic chair with my palms soaking. The panic came up an inch at a time.

A few minutes later the manager came out of the back kitchen with someone behind him. I looked up. The floor went sideways. It was my sister. Reese. Neither of us moved.

Neither of us could keep it off our faces. The manager looked over at me. "You're the other one who came to interview?" I nodded. He took me into the back kitchen to talk.

My roommates had run me through it the night before. I had an answer ready for everything. At the end he said, "The pay here is low.

You're sure you're okay with that?" I nodded hard. "As long as it comes with meals." He looked at me a second longer than he needed to. "What is going on with kids these days," he said, mostly to himself. "Every one of them fighting this hard over a meal.

Does nobody feed them at home?" I didn't understand it. I didn't have time to. He walked me back out and said to both of us, "Wait here a minute.

Let me think about which one of you I'm taking." The second he was gone, the air went tight. Reese shoved me. Hard.

I lost my footing and went down on the floor. "What is wrong with you?" I got up off the tile. "You shove me for nothing. What did I ever do to you?" Her eyes went red at the rims.

Something in my chest dropped. I thought about every soap opera I'd ever watched, the one where the crying girl gets the other one blamed. I took two steps back. "No.

Don't you dare play the victim. You pushed me. I never touched you." Instead, her voice came out scraped raw.

And she said the most shocking thing anyone has ever said to me. "Is this fun for you, Wren?" "You pull $1,500 a month and you still came down here to take a $7.25anhour job away from me.

Just to rub my face in it." Everything in me went rigid