I bite my inner lip at her vanity, but deep down, I understand her. We were dirt poor before Graham married her. She worked two jobs—an overnight shift at a theater and as ahostess at some club. I worked three. Between the two of us, we could barely afford to keep a roof over our heads.
But then, her luck maxed out. She married a multi-millionaire and got her happily ever after, sailing toward the rainbow in a Porsche with perfect nails.
My own unpolished nails scratch at my neck as my awareness of Graham’s gaze intensifies. My sister’s life was “perfect.”
I, however? I was fucked.
I could only barely afford rent when it was both of us footing the bill. I spent weeks waking up in cold sweats, terrified of what I’d do when she ultimately moved out. Asking her for help was out of the question; she’d rather wipe her ass with her money than give a single dollar to me. I don't know exactly when her hatred for me started, or what dark thing happened at sixteen for her to unleash the piles of snakes, bitterness, and anger that had always been coiled in the pits of her stomach.
I tried to ask. She refused to answer. Something broke at sixteen that made her hate my guts. She was never lovey-dovey before that, but she had never been outwardly so hateful either.
And then, the unexpected happened. I didn’t have to worry about rent money anymore, or working myself to the bone.
Graham insisted I move into the mansion with them, and he handed me my very own black credit card. Much to my sister’s utter dismay—a fury she couldn't show him without ruining her image.
My sister while Graham is in the room is unbearable. My sister when she’s alone with me? A devil incarnate.
And I wonder just how much worse she’ll be when she finally realizes that her husband’s expensive leather shoes are currently playing with my heeled feet under the table.
I shiver, curling inward, and pray I never have to find out.
2
Maya
“Tie it tighter, do something right for once, Maya,” Valeria hisses, trying her absolute best to pull her eyebrows together to show her anger. The Botox makes it impossible.
I have no idea why she’s even using it; she’s only twenty-seven. She’s young. The toxin only serves to age her. After every doctor's appointment where she gets more of that poison injected into her skin, she comes swaying home, unable to wait even a single second before taunting me with her new face. If she thinks I’d be jealous, she’s dead wrong. I’m still twenty-five. Wrinkles are the last thing I fear. Her, on the other hand? I’m completely terrified of her. Especially when she’s in one of these unpredictable moods.
I pray to escape this room with my dignity intact.
Aware that her frozen face has failed to convey her frustration, she turns to her hands, clicking her fingers at me like I'm a dog.
“Faster, Maya! We don’t have an eternity,” she huffs.
I sigh, using all my strength to tug the silk draping from her back, watching the corset of her dress cinch her waist into an impossibly small ring. God, I know that hurts. Her breaths come out short, and I could swear her eyes roll back into her head for a split second from the pure lack of oxygen. I instinctively widen my stance to catch her if she passes out, but she just swats me away like a nuisance.
She truly is a vision, though. She’s wearing a turquoise gown with every single inch of the fabric meticulously stitched with glittering Swarovski stones. Her bleached-blond hair is curled to perfection, reaching all the way down to her butt. The makeup she has on is elegant, not overdone at all, enhancing her doll-like features instead of overwhelming them. She looks like a masterpiece.
Then, she hits me over the head with one of her makeup brushes. Hard. I didn’t even do anything.
“How about you go get yourself together instead of staring at me like a creep, Maya?” She mumbles, her lips pursed around her lipstick.
Yeah, right. Like I have a choice. I’m coming with.
I tried my best to get out of it, but Graham was insistent. Just like he’s insistent every single time. I can’t really say no to the powerful man whose roof I’m currently living under. So off I go to these stupid events, surrounded by these stupid, empty rich people, feeling completely out of place. Like I don’t belong anywhere.
Because I don’t.
“I have no idea why he keeps insisting you come with. You ruin our image, in my opinion,” Valeria continues, checking her reflection from another angle.“You’re just… so ordinary. Everything about you is ordinary. I hear them whisper, asking who the nobody is that keeps accompanying us to these events. I never tell them you’re my sister. Why can’t you just stop being…” She pauses, searching for the exact words she knows will cut the deepest into my chest.“Ordinary. Like a plain sheet of paper. Like nothingness.”
I quickly turn around so she doesn’t see the tears welling in my eyes, desperately trying to compose myself. I’d love to think that she’s too busy with her makeup to notice—but she noticeseverything. She relishes in my pain. My pain, to her, is like water to a parched man. She feeds off it. She needs it to survive.
And the worst fucking part is that nothing she says is inherently wrong. On the contrary, she’s right. I am nothingness. Ordinary. A plain sheet of paper, just as she calls it.
I count inside my head to keep the breakdown at bay.
One. I’m going to get out of here soon.
