My Mom Hid Gold In Her Truffle Box Chapter 04

My Mom Hid Gold In Her Truffle Box Chapter 04

I hit the cold floor. My palms scraped raw, stinging against the tile.

But that pain was nothing next to what was already sitting in my chest.

Unhappy? Yeah. I was unhappy.

I didn’t even know Mom had bought Chloe a car.

Because when I graduated, Mom came to me with tears in her eyes and an apology.

“Eleanor, we just finished paying off the debts. Money’s still tight.”

“I got you a second-hand moped. I know it’s not much, but it’ll get you to work for now.”

That moped cost a few hundred dollars, and the brakes barely worked. I rode it through rain and heat, wiped out more than once, and I still have the scars on my legs to prove it.

And the whole time, my loving mother was buying Chloe a car.

I got up slowly and brushed myself off.

“Mom, is what Chloe said true?” My voice came out flat. Empty.

Mom panicked. She wheeled on Chloe.

“Enough! Not another word!”

“Can’t you just let Eleanor have anything? Do you have to tear this whole family apart?”

She was still acting, still clinging to the lie that I was her favorite.

I blinked hard against the sting in my eyes and looked right past her.

“Chloe, what else?” My voice was ice.

Mom’s outburst rattled Chloe for a second, but she set her jaw and kept going.

“And it’s not just college! Every Thanksgiving, it’s truffles. Every Christmas, custom ornaments. Every Easter, chocolate eggs.”

“I get one. You get ten, twenty pounds. Every single time!”

“She can’t even treat us the same on something that small. How is that not enough proof?”

She jabbed a finger at the gift box on the table.

“Eleanor, stop pretending.”

“Everyone here thinks those are just regular truffles, ornaments, and eggs.”

“But what’s really inside them, and how much you’ve squeezed out of this family, you’re the only one who knows.”

I looked at how sure she was, how absolutely convinced, and I laughed.

I laughed until the tears ran down my face.

“You’re right. Only I know.”

“And since you want the full accounting, fine. Let everyone see exactly what I’ve been getting.”

I turned and grabbed the artisan truffle box, the one Mom had just shoved into Chloe’s hands.

Then I picked up the ten-pound bag of regular chocolates Mom had set aside for me.

“Eleanor, what are you doing?” Mom lunged for the box.

She was scrambling to cover it up.

“What, you’re jealous because Chloe’s box looks prettier?”

“It’s just a cheap gift box from the store!”

“Pretty wrapping, that’s all. The chocolate inside is nothing special!”

Her fingers clamped around the box, her voice shaking.

“The chocolates I gave you, I made those myself.”

“Now put them down before you embarrass yourself in front of everyone!”

I met her eyes, yanked the box out of her grip, and held it up.

“Embarrass myself?” A smile pulled at my mouth, thin and bitter.

“Mom, which one of us should be embarrassed right now?”

I dropped both boxes on the coffee table with a thud.

“I want to know something, Mom. Did you hide solid gold inside mine, too?”