They Made My Life A Joke For 18 Years, I Stopped Laughing Chapter 07

They Made My Life A Joke For 18 Years, I Stopped Laughing Chapter 07

Once my Eastbridge enrollment was finalized, I stretched what was left of my savings as far as I

could.

I tried nearly every restaurant around campus before one finally agreed to hire me.

My parents made millions a year, and I was still broke.

Sienna got nearly six figures a year in spending money.

When it came to me, my parents only sighed and shook their heads.

“You don’t know how to manage money. Too much of it would only hurt you. We’re protecting you.”

So when Sienna and Ethan went skiing in Aspen, I trailed behind them taking their pictures.

Gavin did his bachelor’s and master’s in London, and when he came home, my parents rewarded

him with a Maybach.

All I’d wanted was an eighty-dollar dress.

They called me materialistic.

Then they turned around and bought the dress for Sienna.

I’d understood far too late.

That was why I’d kept fighting, year after year, for a place in that house.

“Wow. Richard Sutton’s incredible. Started his company at thirty-five, and by forty-eight he was

the richest man in San Diego.”

At midnight, I was wiping down the last table at Hayes Diner when Marty, the owner, paused with a

spatula in hand and stared at the television.

A business interview with Dad from two years earlier was playing on the screen.

On-screen, he looked confident and triumphant, like a man who had won at everything.

And I was still Cinderella in the corner.

“What good did that do me?”

I muttered it under my breath and scrubbed the table even harder.

“Kid, you don’t get it. When somebody gets that successful, the whole family usually gets to enjoy

it.”

“If you were his daughter, you’d be living like a princess right now, not wiping tables at midnight.”

I smiled.

Then I wiped the sweat from my forehead.

“Not always. A parent can have all the money in the world. Doesn’t mean he’ll spend any of it on his

kid.”

Marty tapped the top of my head.

“You’re too young to sound that jaded.”

“Look at me. I run a little diner. I’m nobody special. But just about everything I’ve saved has gone to my daughter.”

“I paid for her master’s in England. When she came home, I helped her with a condo and bought her

a car. I wanted her to have choices. I never wanted her stuck with some guy because she couldn’t

afford to walk away.”

I looked down and said nothing.

My vision blurred before I could stop it.

Really?

Parents like that actually existed?

I let out a quiet sigh.

I wiped the last corner of the table clean.

“Marty, I’m heading out.”

“It’s late. I don’t want to wake my roommate getting in.”

At one in the morning, Eastbridge was quiet and nearly deserted.

Crickets chirped in the dark every now and then, giving the night an odd kind of peace.

I walked the campus path alone.

But all I could think about were the thick Christmas envelopes my parents had handed Sienna year after year.

Hers were always thick and heavy.

Mine were almost weightless.

Inside was a single twenty-dollar bill.

“Willa.”

I frowned.

Gavin’s familiar voice came from behind me.

I turned and found the same three people who had just been filling my thoughts standing together

behind me.