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I stared at Ethan calmly, which only made him more scared.
When I’m truly furious, I go quiet.
When I was little, I had a pet rabbit. A clueless relative killed it and tricked me into eating it. I calmly ate a bite of the rabbit, then picked up a baseball bat and went to their house, smashing everything I could.
For the next three months, I visited every month to smash something new until they finally moved away.
Maddie, however, seemed completely unfazed by my fury, casually sitting in a rocking chair by the window, enjoying an avocado smoothie
bowl.
Ethan, terrified that I was about to explode, hurriedly promised he’d replace everything that had been lost or broken. That cooled me down slightly.
I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and strolled over to Maddie, flashing her a forced smile. “Maddie, I’m a bit of a neat freak.] don’t like people touching my stuff.”
Maddie wasn’t pleased by my words and shot back sarcastically, “Well, Harper, this is my boyfriend’s house. I can use whatever I want. The owner doesn’t mind, so why should you, the guest, care?”
ad all SVIP stories!
There are times when having morals really sucks.
For the first time in my life, I regretted letting my conscience hold me back from slapping the smirk right off her face.
When my best friend Riley heard about what happened that night, she didn’t hold back. “Harper, how are you not losing your mind? If that girl actually marries your brother, she’ll take over everything your parents built!”
“If she wants to marry into my family, she’ll have to step over my dead body first!”
“Harper, you’d better move back into the house and stay there for a while. That girl already thinks she’s running the place. Today, she stole your stuff. Tomorrow, she’ll probably try to sell the house!”
That was all I needed to hear. Without wasting a second, I packed up my essentials, grabbed my suitcase, and stormed back to the house to stay for the long haul.
The moment I arrived, I went straight to my room and packed up all of Maddie’s stuff, tossing it into the guest room
downstairs.
She thought she could just live in my room? Dream on!
Ethan,” I said into the phone, “I did a little inventory check. All the perfumes, lipsticks, and skincare products that disappeared from my vanity? It adds up to $19,743. But since we’re siblings, I’ll round it down to an even twenty grand.”
On the other end of the line, I heard Ethan stammering.
“Sis… I’ll, uh, transfer the money in a little while, okay?”
I didn’t actually want the money, but something about Ethan’s hesitation felt off. My parents never held back financially with us, and I’ve always been the type to spend without thinking. Ethan, on the other hand, has been managing his own investments since elementary school. It wasn’t unusual for him to have tens of thousands saved up.
“Where’s your money?” I asked.
The second I asked, Ethan said he had to go to class and quickly hung up. But I had clearly heard the sound of a convenience store bell in the background.
1:02 PM
