The Forgotten Sister's Revenge

Mom played favorites. She obsessed over Audrey, hellbent on molding her into a prima ballerina.

She threw cash at the most exclusive dance studios in the city, but pinched pennies when I begged for a basic set of paintbrushes. Then I met Harrison.

The old man liked to talk big. He claimed his work hung in major museums.

I'd watch him fishing by the water in ratty flipflops and faded board shorts, rolling my eyes when he bragged that his former students were all worldclass artists.

I didn't buy a single word of it. Until Ezra pulled up his grandfather’s old portfolio.

One of those canvases had once sparked a multimilliondollar bidding war among private collectors. Suddenly, my dad, Gregory, remembered I existed.

He crawled out of the woodwork, pushing me to leverage my new connections to bail out the family business. I just stared at him.

The old desperation for his approval simply evaporated. Blood might be an accident of birth. But real family? You get to handpick them yourself.

Chapter 1 When we were six, Audrey announced she was going to be a prima ballerina. Mom immediately started hunting for the best instructors in the city.

She moved faster than I did when fighting for the last piece of fried chicken. I sprawled across the kitchen table, scribbling on scrap paper.

I heard Dad grumble about the tuition fees. I smirked. That was what Audrey got for constantly making fun of me for being shorter and less pretty than her.

But the very next day, Mom dragged her down to the studio to enroll. After swiping her credit card for the classes, she bought Audrey a pair of glossy pink satin pointe shoes.

They looked exactly like the ones in the fairy tale books. The smirk vanished. I couldn't help myself and reached out to brush my fingers against the ribbon. Slap!

Audrey swatted my hand away. She hit hard, acting like I was going to snatch them right out of her grip.

I rubbed my stinging skin. "I was just touching them!" She hugged the box to her chest. "No.

If you get them dirty, you can't afford to replace them!" I marched straight into the kitchen, holding up my red, chubby hand for inspection. "Mom, Audrey hit me.

If she gets to take dance classes, I want art lessons." Mom kept her eyes locked on the sizzling pan. "No. Your drawings look like chicken scratch.

You don't have any talent, and I'm not wasting money on it." That wasn't true. I had just drawn a magical zoo with my crayons.

My kindergarten teacher told me my color choices were bold. The purple dog was blueberryflavored. Mom ignored me.

She grabbed the platter of BBQ ribs and carried it out to the dining room. I trailed right behind her, sticking to her like a piece of velcro.

She set the plate down and immediately piled more than half the ribs onto Audrey's plate. She didn't give me a single piece. I didn't have time to let it sting.

I grabbed my fork and aggressively stabbed three pieces, dragging them onto my own plate. Mom frowned. "Sloane, are you really that starved?

You act like a wild animal." Audrey straightened her posture, looking down her nose at me. "All she does is eat. She's just a bottomless pit." I admitted I loved food.

But that was only because Mom exclusively bought snacks Audrey liked. She always let Audrey pick out her dresses first, too.

If I complained even once, Mom would just take everything away. Before dance, she had enrolled Audrey in piano lessons.

Just to keep me from causing trouble, Mom bought me a cheap pack of markers and told me to go color. I wanted to play the piano.

Audrey wouldn't let me within three feet of the bench. So, I slammed my palms down on the black and white keys, creating a horrible, echoing racket. It drove her absolutely insane.

Mom got sick of the noise. She dumped a pile of hard candies and cheap animal crackers in front of me, demanding I stay quiet.

Then she turned around and fed Audrey the ripest, sweetest parts of the strawberries. She didn't even leave the white stems. I practically begged for a bite.

Instead, Mom shoved a dollar into my hand and told me to run down to the corner bodega for a bottle of ketchup, threatening to skip my dinner if I didn't go.

Downstairs, the woman running the fruit stand was chatting with a customer. "Strawberries are so expensive this season. I haven't had a single one.

I saved the entire box for my daughter." I jammed my hand into my pocket, my fingers brushing against those cheap, generic hard candies.

A lump formed in my throat, thick and hard to swallow. Something twisted in my gut—a quiet realization that something was fundamentally wrong with this picture.

Mom committed hard to Audrey’s dance classes. Three times a week, plus private sessions. The instructors constantly praised Audrey for working harder than the other kids.

Audrey strutted past me in a brandnew leotard and intentionally bumped my shoulder. I crossed my arms. She was just jealous I got to sit around and watch TV.

Once Audrey started dancing, the living room transformed.

Mom shoved the coffee table into the corner and cleared out all the chairs, creating a massive empty space for Audrey to practice. My usual spot for watching cartoons vanished.

I had to drag a cushion to the very edge of the room. "Sloane, move. You're blocking your sister's mirror. Sloane, turn that down.

Audrey is practicing." I slid all the way into the darkest corner and hit the mute button on the remote.

Then, I came home from school one afternoon, and the living room was stripped bare.

Chapter 2 "Where is the TV?" "Sold it." Mom didn't even look up. "Your sister gets distracted by the noise.

Her instructor says she has incredible potential, but she needs to build her focus. You barely watch it anyway." "I watch it every single day!" "Is your homework done?

All you care about is that stupid screen." Mom sold the TV to the scrap collector down the street. I screamed and protested. It didn't change a thing.

Year three of Audrey's ballet training.

I learned to chug tap water to suppress the hunger pangs. "Your sister needs to maintain her figure for competitions," Mom declared. "No highcalorie junk food is allowed past the front door." They say resentment is a mountain.

In my house, it was built meal by meal.

I filled an entire sketchbook with drawings of bacon cheeseburgers, roasted chicken, triplechocolate cake, ice cream, french fries, and cold sodas.

I drew every single thing I craved. And I wasn't allowed to eat a single bite of it. Seeing it might make Audrey hungry. I was a growing kid.

Boiled chicken breast wasn't cutting it. My stomach twisted in protest, rumbling loud enough to echo in the quiet kitchen. Two breakfast plates sat on the table.

Audrey’s plate held a single hardboiled egg, half a small baked sweet potato, a few cherry tomatoes, and a cup of plain, unsweetened yogurt. I got the exact same thing.

Only my sweet potato was noticeably smaller. Mom kept her eyes down, peeling the foil lid off Audrey's yogurt and sliding a straw into it.

By the time I got to school, I was exhausted and starving. I popped a Vitamin C effervescent tablet into my mouth, pretending it was candy. Mr.

Davis, my homeroom teacher, spun around from the whiteboard right as my eyes rolled back, thick white foam bubbling past my lips.

He dropped his chalk, his hands shaking in sheer panic. Brody, my deskmate, dragged a hand down his face.

He pushed a carton of milk and a hot breakfast sandwich across our shared desk. "Sloane, did the hunger finally kill off your last brain cell?" I didn't hesitate.

I devoured the entire thing the second the bell rang for passing period. I had practically been on my deathbed.

After school on Monday, Brody tossed an apple onto my desk. "What's up with your sister?

I waved at her this morning and she looked right through me." "She lost her competition." "Oh. So you're thrilled, right?" I froze. "Why would I be thrilled?" "She got second place.

You've always been jealous of her." My grip slipped.

The apple hit the desk with a heavy thud. "When have I ever been jealous?" "She's gorgeous, she's an elite dancer, and she gets straight As.

You wear your resentment right on your face." "No I don't!" "Liar.

You literally eat potato chips right in front of her just to mess with her head." He leaned closer, lowering his voice. "Audrey trains until her toes bleed.

The least you could do is not trigger her on purpose." I traded one of my sketches for a single bag of chips with a kid in gym class. I ate them locked in my own bedroom.

Audrey walked past. She shot me one glance. Just one. She retreated to her room and clicked the lock.

When Mom finally pushed the door open, Audrey was sitting dead center on her mattress. No tears. Just sharp, uncontrollable tremors wracking her frame.

Mom interrogated her, begging to know what was wrong. Finally, Audrey snapped. "Why does Sloane get to eat, and I can't?!" Mom hurled the rest of my chips into the trash.

She screamed that Audrey had a massive competition coming up, that her toughest rival was stressing her out, and that I was a cold, heartless brat. My punishment?

Zero allowance and absolutely no snacks. Someone had clearly fed Brody a highly edited version of the story. A tight, suffocating knot formed in my chest.

I had categorized Brody as my absolute best friend. He shared his food with me. He was always the first one to pull me up when I tripped and scraped my knees on the playground.

Until he saw Audrey. She performed at the school assembly, stepping out in her pristine white tutu, looking like a literal swan.

After that, the snacks Brody brought me always included an extra, identical portion. For Audrey.

When she missed class for ballet competitions, he painstakingly copied all of his notes for her. She never explicitly accepted his help, but she never rejected it, either.

I figured Brody had a short temper. I thought he’d eventually get sick of her freezing him out and drop it. I was wrong.

His stare carried the heavy, unblinking judgment reserved for the villain of the story.

Chapter 3 "Brody, leave." "Why?" "I'm done hanging out with you." "You're mad again?" He dug a plastic tube of Mini M&Ms out of his pocket.

The neon candies rattled against the plastic. "You do this every time you get pissed off. You just want me to beg. I didn't mean it. It was a joke.

Come on, don't be a baby." I stared at the plastic tube. Was he actually my friend? I squeezed my fists.

It felt exactly like holding a piece of melting chocolate—sticky, messy, and ruining my skin. I snatched the candy from his hand and tossed it directly into the nearest trash can.

It hit the bottom with a hollow thud. I turned my back on him and sprinted all the way down to the riverbank. Harrison stood by the water, wearing his faded board shorts. "Sloane!

You're in luck!" he yelled, his voice carrying over the rushing current. "I caught a monster today!

We'll have your grandmother fry it up." He puffed his chest out, wearing a grin that demanded applause.

A year ago, Harrison had spotted me sketching minnows and crawdads in the mud. He clucked his tongue and praised my line work.

He bragged about mentoring worldclass artists, claiming he retired to this quiet town just to escape the relentless gallery owners banging on his door.

I didn't buy a single word of it. Real, famous artists didn't secretly buy fish from the local market and pass them off as their own catch. They didn't wear blownout flipflops.

And they definitely didn't bribe a sixyearold witness with dried squid snacks to keep their dirty little secrets. I was that bribed sixyearold.

My job was simple: lie to his wife and swear he pulled that storebought bass straight out of the river.

Whenever I dragged a stick through the dirt to draw, Harrison would casually toss out a critique. My actual house was practically a ghost town.

Gregory was always gone, chasing his next business deal. Mom’s entire social media feed was dedicated exclusively to Audrey.

Every single class, every competition, every pulled muscle. She obsessively documented Audrey’s technique, relentlessly emailed instructors, and hunted down prestigious showcases.

Half the time, she completely forgot to leave me cash for dinner. So, I’d grab my beatup transit card, ride the bus three stops down, and crash Harrison’s house for a free meal.

I carried the metal bucket as I followed Harrison up his driveway. His house smelled like old paper and orchids. Framed ink washes covered every inch of the walls.

His wife smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners. "Sloane!

If you didn't show up, I was going to lose my mind staring at this old goat." She peeked into the bucket at the thrashing fish. "Nice haul.

Let me guess—you scooped these up with a net while he was napping?" Harrison shot me a desperate, wideeyed glare.

I linked my arm through hers. "Doesn't matter where they came from. Once you cook them, they'll be the best thing I've eaten all week." "Smooth talker," she chuckled.

She scraped the scales off the tiny fish right at the sink.

She tossed them in her secret marinade, gave them a light dusting of flour, and dropped them one by one into a castiron skillet of sizzling oil.

Ten minutes later, a plate of perfectly golden, crispy fried fish hit the table. I housed three of them backtoback, hyping up her cooking skills between bites. She beamed.

Harrison scoffed from across the table. "Kid, you're better at kissing up than you are at drawing." He pointed his chopsticks at me. "If you lived a little closer, she'd drag you over here every single night." I polished off the fish and drained my bowl of soup.

I patted my distended stomach and let out a loud burp.

While his wife scrubbed the plates in the kitchen and Harrison brewed looseleaf tea in his study, the massive carb crash hit me.

I slumped back into a woven wicker chair and let my eyelids droop. Then, the front door clicked open. I blinked my heavy eyes. A guy stood in the entryway.

He wore a crisp white buttondown. His jawline was sharp enough to cut glass, and his skin was impossibly pale. Paler than the porcelain soup bowls we just ate from.

Every trace of sleep instantly vanished from my system. Chapter 4 Harrison walked out of the study, carrying his porcelain mug.

He took one look at the guy in the entryway and scoffed. "Well, look who it is, Sloane.

My absolute icicle of a grandson finally dragged himself home." He gestured vaguely with his free hand. "That's Ezra. Trying to get a word out of him is like pulling teeth.

Don't hold your breath waiting for a conversation." I had heard Harrison complain endlessly about his son, a guy who refused to take over the family business.

And he constantly griped about his painfully mute, antisocial grandson. But he deliberately left out one crucial detail. Ezra was gorgeous.

Easily the bestlooking guy I had ever seen in my entire life. My heart slammed against my ribs. A harsh, erratic rhythm I had never felt before.

I stepped forward and stuck my hand out. "I'm Sloane. Your grandfather's chess rival and your grandmother's professional tastetester." His dark eyelashes lowered.

His eyes were pure black, like the bottom of a deep well.

A heavy silence stretched out before his lips finally parted. "You are a variable." I just stared at him, my mind drawing a total blank.

Harrison glared at Ezra, then whipped his head toward the kitchen. "Do you see this?" he yelled to his wife. "Do you see what your son turned our grandson into?

He talks like a damn robot! The stray cats in the alley have more personality than him!" His wife didn't even spare the old man a glance.

She grabbed Ezra by the forearm and pulled him toward the dining table, immediately fussing over him and asking about his trip.

Meanwhile, Harrison dragged me into the study and forced me to set up the chessboard.

He kept craning his neck to peek out the door, grumbling under his breath, trashtalking his son, and criticizing Ezra's every move. I eventually pieced the story together.

Ezra’s parents were highlevel researchers on the East Coast, burning through government funding and virtually living in their labs.

Ezra practically grew up inside a research facility. He was a math prodigy, inheriting his parents' freakish genius, but he remained barricaded behind his own walls.

He refused to leave his room, barely spoke, and had to be reminded to eat. His mother got terrified he was going to snap.

So, she shipped him upstate to live with his grandparents, hoping a quiet town would ground him. Hoping he’d learn how to be a normal kid. My eyes lit up.

From an artist's perspective, Ezra’s bone structure was flawless. Especially his brow bone. If the light hit it at just the right angle, it would cast the most incredible shadow.

His grandmother enrolled him in the high school just down the street. Every weekend, I’d pedal over on my pink bike. It was a handmedown Mom originally bought for Audrey.

Audrey fell off it exactly once, threw a fit, and refused to touch it ever again. I stuck to my usual routine. I played chess with Harrison and watered the orchids for his wife.

Ezra stayed buried in his math equations. His spotless bedroom was quickly buried under mountains of scratch paper.

His grandmother had to pound on his door three times before he finally emerged for dinner. She had pulled out all the stops.

Slowroasted beef stew, homemade chicken soup, honeyglazed squash, and garlic butter greens.

My mouth instantly watered. "This is amazing!" I practically inhaled my first bite. "The soup is perfect, the beef is melting in my mouth—I'm obsessed with everything on this table!" A chef loves nothing more than a bottomless pit.

She beamed at me, her smile stretching from ear to ear. Harrison shot his grandson a pointed look. "Take notes from Sloane," he barked. "Learn how to make your grandmother smile.

Stop acting like a damn wall.

It shouldn't take an act of Congress to get a single word out of you." I used the distraction to openly stare at Ezra’s face. "Harrison," I said, pointing my fork. "You always said the best bone structure can't be taught.

Are you talking about lines like his?" Harrison's eyes instantly lit up. "See? I told you this kid had a gifted eye.

She sees the geometry everyone else completely misses." He puffed up his chest, immediately weaponizing my compliment to stroke his own ego.

Just like that, Ezra became my permanent model. He didn't have to pose or do anything special.

He just sat in the backyard solving his equations, hiding out so Harrison couldn't drag him down to the river to fish, force him into chess matches, or parade him around the neighborhood gossips.

The graphite scratched aggressively against my sketchbook paper.

I glanced down at my page, then looked back up at Ezra's profile. "Tilt your chin to the left," I ordered. "I need the sunlight hitting the shadow on your cheekbone." He shifted slightly. "Right there.

Yeah, don't move a muscle." Chapter 5 "You mad? Don't be. I wasn't staring at you. I was studying your bone structure." Slowly, Ezra got used to having me around.

Sometimes I dragged him out of his chair and forced him to jump rope. Other times, I pulled him out the front door to watch the river and listen to the birds.

He always locked up when we hit a crowd. I'd grab his wrist and pull him along. I told him about the year I almost starved.

Mom had packed up and left for Audrey's outofstate competition without leaving me a single dollar for groceries.

I bragged about scrubbing greasy plates at the local BBQ joint just to earn half a dozen beef skewers. He just listened. He kept his eyes on my face.

A complicated shift moved behind his dark pupils. By middle school, Audrey and I were living in two completely different universes. She trained like a machine.

Fluid built up in her knees. Blood blisters coated her toes. She passed out from low blood sugar trying to stick to her brutal diet.

Mom hovered over her, practically vibrating with pride. "Audrey, you're going to be a principal dancer. I know it." Audrey racked up the trophies.

But she always fell just short of being the absolute best in the state.

Many nights, Mom sat her down at the kitchen island, swiping through an iPad, dissecting every single micromovement of her top rivals.

The next morning, Mom booked extra private sessions and pushed her even harder. Every single household chore fell on my shoulders.

I stopped fighting it and asked for an allowance instead.

Mom smacked the back of my head. "Your dad is working his fingers to the bone, and your sister is killing herself in the studio. I have to manage her schedule.

If you don't clean this house, who will?" Audrey burned through money. Master classes, custom tutus, entry fees.

Dad brought in the cash, and Mom squeezed every penny. "You have the nerve to ask for cash?

I told you, everything goes to your sister's training." "She didn't even win first place last time," I shot back. "Why can't I just buy a cheap set of paints?" Mom slammed her chef's knife down on the cutting board. "Excuse me?

Are you seriously throwing her placement in her face? It was a minor slipup! Do you have any idea how hard she works?" "You sit around scribbling all day.

You're completely useless. Audrey is going to get scouted by a major company.

How many kids with a sketchbook actually make a dime?" "You haven't even looked at a single one of my drawings…" Mom waved me off, dismissing me with a flick of her wrist.

She pointed at the door and ordered me to go buy a bottle of vinegar. The urge to walk away and never come back hit a boiling point. I ended up down by the river.

I grabbed a thick, heavy branch and gouged it deep into the wet sand. A shadow fell over me. Ezra stood there. He stared down at the massive eye I had carved into the dirt.

A paintbrush was stabbed right through the pupil, locked tight inside a set of iron bars. Hot tears spilled over my lashes, tracking down my cheeks.

It was the first time I ever broke down in front of him. Ezra stood in absolute silence.

He took the branch from my grip and systematically crossed out every single bar of the cage in the sand. "Your mother is objectively wrong.

Drawing is not useless." His voice was flat, perfectly steady. "Her metric for value is entirely based on your sister's output. Your talent doesn't belong in a cage.

Lower your expectations of your parents. Better yet, find a completely different ruler to measure yourself with." The tight knot in my chest finally loosened.

I actually understood him. Ezra drafted the blueprints for a glass enclosure. Harrison hired a crew to rip up part of the backyard and build out a private art studio.

His wife filled the corners with blooming potted orchids. Two solid desks sat sidebyside inside.

Golden sunlight poured through the glass panes, casting warm, shifting shadows across the bright petals. "Happy birthday." A heavy brass key dropped directly into my palm. "I… I can't take this." "We built it specifically for you," Harrison barked, his voice booming across the yard. "If you don't take it, I'm throwing a fit." Chapter 6 Harrison called me a chatterbox, claiming my constant talking breathed life into his dead house.

His wife treated me like her own personal sunshine.

I reminded her to take her blood pressure meds and watered the orchids every chance I got. "You're just a kid, but you nag us about our annual checkups every single year," she’d say, her eyes softening. "You know the hospital procedures way too well.

You must have spent a lot of time running there all by yourself." I had. So many times. Mom would dump me in the emergency room waiting area and rush off to Audrey's rehearsals.

I remembered a nurse yanking an IV out of my arm, loudly criticizing my parents' gross negligence. I had walked home alone in the freezing rain.

Now, if I coughed even once, Ezra's grandmother was immediately on the stove, boiling pear and honey throatsoothing tea. Growing up taught me a hard truth.

Chasing a onesided relationship just bled you dry; real love had to flow both ways. I thanked god for that random afternoon years ago.

The day I helped Harrison up from the pavement when no one else would touch him, hauling him to the clinic to patch up his scraped leg.

That one splitsecond decision had somehow bought me the exact family I had been starving for. I tested into the city's elite magnet high school. Audrey sobbed for an entire night.

Her brutal dance schedule had tanked her grades. Mom gripped my acceptance letter, staring at the thick cardstock like it was forged. "How is this even possible?

Brody had to hire a private tutor just to scrape by, and Audrey missed the cutoff by several points. You're never even in this house.

How did you get in?" A hollow laugh nearly escaped my throat. Mom had dragged Audrey to outofstate competitions constantly.

She took her to Disneyland for her birthday and didn't even bring me back a cheap keychain. I had grown numb to the echo of an empty house.

But Ezra's grandmother couldn't stand the thought of me eating alone, calling me over the second her soup finished simmering. Harrison critiqued my art twice a week.

My stacks of used sketchpad paper piled up as high as Ezra's math drafts.

Ezra tutored me in calculus, splitting the advanced prep materials his genius parents mailed him right down the middle. Audrey had Mom propping her up. But I wasn't falling, either.

I had handselected a vastly superior support system. Mom wrapped her arms around Audrey's shaking shoulders. "You're an elite dancer. You need to be at an elite school.

I'll pull some strings.

We'll pay the premium and get you a spot, too." A bitter impulse possessed me. "Mom," I started. "If I had failed the entrance exam, would you have paid to get me in?" Mom's head snapped up. "How can you even compare yourself to Audrey?

She's sweet. She knows how hard I work and massages my shoulders." "You used to be cute, but now you just walk around with a permanent scowl.

You act like a complete martyr over a missed meal." I grew up like a ghost in my own home, stumbling through my childhood alone.

I knew better than to keep throwing myself against a brick wall expecting a different result. Yet, a phantom ache still flared tight in my chest. Audrey locked her eyes on my face.

She was waiting for it. Waiting for me to throw a tantrum, to scream about how unfair Mom was, just like I did when we were six. I didn't give her the satisfaction.

I turned my back on them and walked straight into my bedroom. I shoved my heavyduty earplugs deep into my canals. Absolute silence.

The next morning, a pristine pink stuffed fox sat on my nightstand. It was Audrey’s absolute favorite Disney plushie.

Was she guilty about draining the family bank account to buy her way into my high school? Or had she simply gotten bored of the toy and tossed her garbage my way?

Years ago, I would have obsessed over the "why." Now, I had an entire secondary family aggressively and openly loving me. That bottomless void in my chest was already patched.

I had no use for her leftover scraps of affection. When the semester started, Brody practically cornered me in the hallway.

His family had moved out of our neighborhood shortly after our massive fight in middle school. He had tried coming back to look for me a few times.

I had treated him like he didn't exist. "Sloane, you got taller.

And way prettier," he said, leaning against the lockers. "I heard Audrey's sweeping up all the major dance titles, though.

Guess you're still living in her shadow." I stared at him blankly. Where did this absolute clown come from? The sheer volume of his stupidity gave me a migraine.

I walked right past him, not even bothering to open my mouth. My only actual regret was that I hadn't studied hard enough to test into the elite AP track with Ezra.

Chapter 7 The final bell rang. A tall silhouette appeared in the doorway. A girl a few desks down practically vibrated in her seat. "That's the guy from the AP track!

He's gorgeous." "I heard he placed first in the entire city on the entrance exam," another whispered. "Beat the runnerup by thirty points." Brody clicked his tongue.

He had spent all of middle school crowning himself the king of the hallways. He swore a "temporary slipup" was the only reason he didn't make the elite AP cut.

Otherwise, he’d be the one turning heads at the door. I let his delusional rambling fade into dead static.

I shoved my binders into my backpack, zipped it shut, and bolted into the hall. The next morning, Brody dropped his bag onto his desk and glared at me. "What is your deal with Ezra?

Why were you biking home with him yesterday?" "None of your business." "Ungrateful," he scoffed. "Did you forget who used to feed you when you were starving half to death as a kid?" I paused.

I dug into my backpack, pulled out two crumpled twentydollar bills and a ten, and slapped the fifty bucks flat onto his desk. "Reimbursement.

We're even." Mom's allowance for me was practically nonexistent. Over the summer, Ezra had caught me sneaking out to wash dishes at a local diner just to afford fresh paint.

He told me to start selling my canvases. Harrison shot the idea down immediately. He didn't want me burning out my creative drive for quick cash. "Sloane, your art is a seed.

It hasn’t sprouted yet. Don’t force it." Spending years in this quiet town had actually changed Ezra. He wasn't trapped behind his own walls anymore.

He learned how to exist in the real world. He pulled some strings with his parents' connections back East and landed me a freelance gig illustrating children's books.

It was solid practice, and it actually paid. I kept my mouth shut about it at home.

I used my first paycheck to buy Harrison a pair of heavyduty wool socks and got his wife a rare potted orchid.

I used the leftover cash to buy leather paint and customdesigned a pair of sneakers specifically for Ezra. He never explicitly said he liked them.

But his face remained completely deadpan as he laced them up every single morning. Brody picked up the fifty bucks, letting out a harsh, sarcastic laugh. "Sloane, cut the crap.

Are you only hanging out with him for his cash? Do you have any idea how much that bike he rides costs?

It's easily five figures." Brody's dad ran a highend mountain bike dealership. He obviously knew his inventory.

I shook my head. "Impossible." Harrison and his wife lived on a strict budget. Ezra's parents were blowing through government grants researching semiconductors.

There was no way they were buying their kid a tenthousanddollar bike. Brody narrowed his eyes. "Whatever. I don't care about him. My family is loaded now.

I want to go out with your sister. Pass this letter to her." He stared directly into my eyes, searching my face for any trace of jealousy.

I stared back, keeping my expression deadpan. "Deliver your own garbage." Audrey was beautiful.

The line of guys trying to date her stretched out to the parking lot. "Won't do it?" Brody smirked. "You're just jealous.

Don't tell me you're actually obsessed with me." He turned to the guy sitting across the aisle. "Sloane used to be my little shadow in middle school.

She was so desperate for food, she'd eat anything. I literally fed her cat treats, and she chewed them up like candy." A sickening heat flared in my gut.

Nausea hit the back of my throat. No wonder those snacks always tasted like sour fish. He had sworn they were expensive calcium vitamins his dad brought back from Europe.

I didn't hesitate. I grabbed my heavy canvas backpack by the strap and slammed it directly into the side of Brody's head. The textbooks inside connected with a brutal thud.

He clutched his skull, letting out a pathetic yelp