The Princess Lives in a Truman World Chapter 01

The Princess Lives in a Truman World Chapter 01

After my parents divorced, they split us up. My twin sister, Aria, went with Dad, while I went with Mom.

After the divorce, Mom became despondent. She gambled away every dollar we had, and when the money ran out, she started bringing different men home.

She moved me into a damp, run-down tenement in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. I was constantly forced to listen to the sounds of sex coming from her room.

On top of going to school every day, I had to work under the table to cover my own living expenses. Life was brutal.

Then one day, Aria, who had not contacted me in a long time, sent me a link to a livestream.

Aria: [Sofia, open the link. I have a surprise for you.]

I tapped it, only to discover that the number-one livestream on the entire platform was a live feed of me.

The broadcast used a split screen. On one side, I was doing homework under the weak light in my run-down apartment. On the other, Mom and Dad sat with their arms around Aria in the lavish great room at the Corleone estate.

The title was [One Twin Raised in Deprivation, the Other in Privilege: See the Difference at Eighteen].

[She still has no idea, does she? Her parents never divorced. They’re rich, still happily together, and they raised her twin in wealth and privilege.]

[This is horrifying. She never has enough to eat or warm clothes to wear. How is this not child abuse?]

[The older twin was always more responsible, so her parents chose her to be the one raised in deprivation.]

My hands shook around the phone. I could not believe what I was seeing.

It was a private, members-only livestream platform the Corleone crime family had created for extreme prank and humiliation content. Access was by invitation only, and most members came from wealthy, well-connected circles.

The divorce, the deprivation I had endured, and Aria’s privileged upbringing had all been staged as a game.

They had kept this livestreamed scheme going for six years for one reason: to entertain viewers and draw more paying members to the platform.

I had always believed Dad had taken Aria and moved to another city. All this time, he and Aria had been with Mom.

I sat outside the restaurant beneath the full force of the afternoon sun, yet my entire body had gone cold.

Aria sent two more messages.

Aria: [You’re the one Mom and Dad never loved.]

Aria: [Watching you live like that almost makes me feel bad. Living at the estate even makes me feel a little guilty.]

The phone seemed to weigh a hundred pounds in my hands, and I could not think of a single reply.

“Sofia, bus those two tables right now!” my manager shouted.

I worked at the restaurant every day after school.

Ever since the divorce, Mom had spent her days at poker tables. She never gave me a cent to live on, and on the rare occasions when she won, she tossed me a few dollars as if she were doing me a favor.

I had practically begged the manager to let me work there.

At nine that night, I finished my shift and trudged home in a daze.

In the middle of a brutal summer, my top-floor apartment in the run-down tenement had no air-conditioning. Walking inside felt like stepping into an oven.

Mom, Dad, and Aria could never understand what that was like. They were probably relaxing together at the estate.

The bulb flickered overhead, ready to burn out again.

Ever since Mom had moved me into that neighborhood, she had barely come home. Whenever she did show up, she brought a different man with her, and the sounds of sex carried through the apartment.

She gambled away whatever they paid her and never spared a thought for her own daughter.

I had never imagined that all the time she stayed away, she had actually been with Aria.

Had any of them ever once remembered that they had another daughter barely surviving in a tenement?

I had lived this way for almost six years.