The Daughter They Never Wanted Chapter 03

The Daughter They Never Wanted Chapter 03

Maybe because she knew they were just acting, Kate didn’t mistreat me.

She cleaned up a small and dark room and let me stay there.

Without Daisy constantly picking on me, I actually slept better at night. I got better grades too.

Then one day, the teacher announced parent-teacher conferences.

The kids in my class started jeering, “Hey, Nancy, is your housekeeper mom coming?”

I kept my head down and plowed through one practice paper after another, saying nothing.

No parent had ever shown up to sit for me at a conference. Not once in all these years.

One time I got first place. I begged my parents to come.

But they said, “Nancy, you’re so considerate. You don’t need us to worry about you, right?”

They fought over who got to go to Daisy’s conference. Even her grades were at the bottom.

So I thought, fine. I’ll make them worry. If being good never got their attention, maybe being bad would.

Next test, I purposely filled in wrong answers. I scored even lower than Daisy.

What I got instead was a beating from both of them.

On conference day, I walked past Daisy’s classroom. I heard the teacher’s tired voice.

“The SAT is coming up. Daisy’s scores won’t even get her into community college.”

“I know you’re planning to send her abroad. But she got three points on the language test…”

Three points? I couldn’t hold back a sharp, surprised laugh.

Daisy’s head whipped toward me. Her eyes were pure poison.

She didn’t waste any time plotting her payback.

When I got back to my classroom, Kate came rushing in.

“Sorry I’m late, sir.”

She’d just come from the grocery store. She reeked of raw fish.

Kids pinched their noses and glared at me.

But the teacher glanced at her and said, “Nancy has improved a lot. She went from top ten to third place…”

That was supposed to be a compliment. But Kate delivered a harsh slap to my cheek.

“This is all you got?” she screamed. “I raised you for nothing!”

A snicker drifted over from the classroom window.

Daisy held up her phone. She waved at me, smirking.

That night, the video was posted on the school forum.

I became the school’s laughingstock overnight. Everywhere I went, people pointed and whispered. Even in the cafeteria, someone deliberately slammed into me, sending my tray clattering to the floor. Food splattered everywhere, and snickers broke out all around me.

When I got home, I saw a blanket spread out on the balcony.

“From now on, you sleep here,” Kate stammered at me.

In the middle of the night, I woke up freezing.

The balcony walls were riddled with cracks, and cold wind cut straight through them.

After one night of that, my head started pounding.

I looked at Kate. “I have a fever,” I whispered. “Can you take me to the hospital?”

Kate snarled, “Sleep it off. You want to waste money?”

I drifted in and out of it. Through the haze, I heard her on the phone with my parents.

“Sir, Miss Nancy has a fever.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“But Miss Daisy won’t let me take her to the hospital.”

“Then do what Daisy says. It’s just a cold. She’ll be fine.”

Tears slid down my face.

A hundred and four degrees Fahrenheit, and to them, it was just a cold.

If I died like this, would they even be sad?

No. They’d just be glad to be rid of the burden.

I forced myself up and took some cold medicine.

Kate didn’t stop me. But later, she quietly had someone fix the cracks in the balcony.