Changing My Flight, I Canceled the Toxic Family Forever Chapter 03

Changing My Flight, I Canceled the Toxic Family Forever Chapter 03

After I washed up and lay down in bed, Noah texted me.

The first thing he asked was simple: [Did you finalize your college applications yet? Brookhaven State University, right?]

Noah had dreamed of Boston for years.

He had once sworn he wouldn’t go anywhere except Harvard or MIT.

But a month before applications were due, he suddenly changed his mind.

He said he would never leave home.

Then he listed Brookhaven State University as his first-choice school.

This time, I couldn’t stop myself from asking why.

Noah hesitated before finally giving me an answer.

“It’s because Chloe’s practice test scores were too low. She’d have a better chance at a local school.”

For a second, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “So you gave up your dream just to go to the same school as her?”

Noah sounded completely casual. “It’s just a school. How is that more important than Chloe?”

All of a sudden, I wanted to laugh.

Back when I found out Noah’s dream schools were Harvard and MIT, I had been so anxious I couldn’t eat or sleep for days.

At the time, my grades were barely good enough for an average state school.

I didn’t dare imagine a place like Harvard or MIT.

But I wanted to end up at the same school as Noah.

So I pushed myself harder than I ever had before.

I studied day and night.

I worked through practice tests until my eyes burned.

I memorized vocabulary until my head throbbed.

When the scores came out, I stared at the score on the screen, high enough for the schools I had once been afraid to dream of, and cried again and again.

But Noah had given up his dream so easily for Chloe.

He had also given up the promise he made to me.

I forced down the ache in my chest and asked one more question, “Then why did you ask me to apply to Brookhaven State with you?”

Before he answered, I imagined a thousand possibilities.

Maybe he couldn’t bear to be away from me.

Maybe he was worried about me going far away alone.

Then Noah gave a low, meaningful laugh. “Chloe is the star, Emma. You’re the supporting act. Without you standing beside her, how is she supposed to shine?”

His words slammed into my heart like a hammer.

The pain made me tremble.

That idea, that Chloe was the star and I was only there to make her shine, had haunted me since the day I was born.

Everyone around me, including my family, used it to lift Chloe up and push me down.

Only Noah had once told me, “You’re you. Even if you’re ordinary, you still shine in your own way to me.”

I believed him.

I was naive enough to think I would always be the one exception in his heart—until he met Chloe.

After that, his gentle gaze never left her again.

I closed my eyes and swallowed the bitterness in my chest.

“If there’s nothing else, I’m going to sleep.”

I hung up before he could answer.

I was about to turn off the light when I looked up and saw Chloe standing at my door with a glass of milk.

“Emma, can I come in?”

I nodded.

She walked over and placed the milk in my hand.

“Oh, right. We’re taking family portraits tomorrow. Don’t oversleep again, okay?”

She gave me a playful wink, then turned and left.

I had wanted to say I was not going, but the words stopped in my throat.

When we were little, Chloe was sickly and weak.

To give my parents more time and energy to take care of her, they sent me to my grandmother’s house in the country.

They were too busy to visit me.

But every holiday, they sent me a family portrait.

In every photo, Chloe stood in the middle, surrounded by my mom, my dad, and Ethan.

She always smiled like she had the whole world.

I envied her.

And because of that, taking a real family portrait with them became one of my deepest wishes.

After I came home, I should have had countless chances to make that wish come true.

But somehow, every time photo day came, I overslept.

I had always kept a regular schedule.

Yet on those mornings, I slept so deeply that no amount of pounding on my bedroom door could wake me.

After it happened a few times, my parents lost patience.

They stopped waiting for me.

Now I had already decided to leave.

But I still didn’t want to leave with that regret.

To make sure I wouldn’t miss it again, I set three alarms.

I turned the volume all the way up.

Since I usually went to bed at ten, I turned off the lights before nine that night and closed my eyes.

But I never expected history to repeat itself.