Not Your Bet to Make Chapter 11

Not Your Bet to Make Chapter 11

Next second.

A slap cracked across my face.

Mom jabbed a finger into my forehead. Screaming.

“You think you’re something now, huh? You dared to change

your application? Stanford was the plan. We spent so long setting it up. You didn’t say a word and switched to UCLA? You think because you’re grown you can make your own

decisions?”

“What did we ever do to make you so desperate to get rid of

us?”

Her voice. Sharp. Piercing. Roommates and classmates drifting past stopped to stare.

So many eyes on me. Humiliation. Bone-deep.

I took a breath. Pulled out my phone. Campus security’s

number was already dialed. Thumb hovering over the call

button.

“You have two options.” I looked my mother in the eye. Voice

flat. Statement of fact. “Leave now. Or I call campus security

and file for a restraining order on grounds of physical

assault. Choose.”

Mom’s face froze.

“You’re threatening me?” Her voice went shrill.

“This isn’t a threat.” I turned the screen toward her. “This is a

boundary. One you taught me. All those years you ignored me. I learned how to protect myself.”

She opened her mouth. Dad grabbed her arm.

He glared at me. Disgust on his face.

“If your brother were alive he would never do something so

heartless. You see we’re getting older and you just want to bully us.”

Brother. Again.

The word “brother” had threaded through my entire life.

My fist clenched. Voice cold.

“You’re still young. If I’m really not good enough, have

another one.”

My parents’ faces changed instantly.

Mom slapped me again. Backhand across my face.

“Is that how you talk to your parents? We worked ourselves to

the bone raising you. Instead of gratitude, you throw this in

our faces?”

“We didn’t have another one because we were afraid you’d

feel we were playing favorites. That you’d resent us even

more.”

That wasn’t the truth. They didn’t say it. But I knew.

Dad couldn’t have more kids.

The year after my brother was born, Dad was in a bad car accident. Lost his fertility.

That was the only reason they brought me back to the city

after my brother died.

In their eyes I wasn’t a daughter. I was a retirement plan.