Chapter 1
The day I got accepted into one of the top universities, my entire family was celebrating my brother buying a house.
The dining table was loaded with food: steak, lobster, clam chowder.
Mom was grinning from ear to ear as she raised her glass. She said, "Today's a big day for our family. James finally bought his house!"
I stood in the doorway, my acceptance letter clutched tightly in my hand.
No one looked at me.
I opened my mouth, wanting to say something.
Mom glanced at me. She said, "Go bring the soup out from the kitchen."
I lowered my eyes to the acceptance letter in my hand.
It had been eighteen years.
Everything they wanted to cut away had already been cut away.
But what was meant to grow? They couldn't cut that down anymore.
*****
As far back as I can remember, James was the center of our family.
Everything revolved around him.
When James turned six, he started piano lessons.
A secondhand piano was brought in, swallowing up a third of the living room.
I crouched beside it, looking, and reached out to touch the keys.
Mom slapped my hand away. "Don't touch it. If you break it, can you pay for it?"
I said, "Mom, I want to learn piano too."
Mom didn't even look up. "Why bother? It'll be a waste of money."
When James turned seven, he started art classes. Every Saturday morning, Mom would take him to the youth center on her motorbike.
I asked, "Can I go too?"
Mom said, "You stay home and wash the dishes."
When James turned eight, he started chess classes.
He had three different hobby classes.
I didn't have any.
It wasn't that I didn't have things I liked.
I loved dancing.
At the school talent show, I performed a dance. The teacher said I had talent and suggested my parents sign me up for classes.
When Mom came to pick me up, the teacher told her about it.
On the way home, I asked carefully, "Mom, how much does dance class cost a month?"
"120 dollars," Mom said.
"I can—" I started.
"Four hundred dollars is enough for a week of James's art classes." She glanced at me. "What can you get out of dancing? It's more important that you help out at home."
I didn't say anything else.
I was eight that year. It was when I realized for the first time that in this family, what I wanted didn't matter.
What mattered was what James wanted.
Every Christmas, our relatives would give presents. Sometimes, they'd give some cash too.
James kept his own.
Mom always took mine.
Mom would always say, "I'll keep the money for you. When you grow up, I'll give it to you."
She said that for ten years.
I never saw a single cent.
When I got older, I asked about it once.
Mom simply said, "It's long gone. What, you think your food and clothes are free?"
Every year, James got his own birthday cake without fail.
Chocolate, fruit, cheesecake... Whatever he liked.
Mom would ask him a week ahead, "What flavor do you want this year?"
And my birthday?
When I turned five, Mom said, "Let's combine yours with James's. It's easier."
James' and my birthdays were two months apart.
From then on, we always had joint birthdays.
However, the cake only had James's name on it.
One year, I finally got up the nerve to ask, "Can you put my name on it too?"
Mom said, "Putting both names on the cake will make it look ugly."
I said, "Then only put my name on it."
Mom shot me a look.
I still remember that look, even now.
It wasn't anger. It was pure confusion.
Like I was asking for something totally unreasonable.
She said, "Why are you so troublesome?"
After that, I never brought it up again.
I learned one thing: in this family, it was better to keep one's mouth shut.
If one said anything, it'd be "making a fuss", "wasting money", or "it's not suitable for you".
So I stopped speaking up.
It never made a difference anyway.
*****
Once we hit middle school, the gap between James and I got even bigger.
James went to the best private middle school in the city.
Tuition was nine thousand dollars a year.
I went to the public school right by our house.
It was free.
Mom said, "Public school is fine too. The money we save can go to James's tutoring."
I didn't say anything.
As for allowance, James lived on campus and got 500 dollars a month.
I was a day student, so Mom handed me 25 bucks every week.
25 bucks.
It was for five lunches, Monday through Friday.
That meant 5 bucks a meal.
The cheapest thing in the cafeteria? Baked potato for three bucks.
So I ate baked potatoes every single day, for three years straight.
Every now and then, they'd have porkchops for 4 bucks.
I'd stand by the window and stare at it for a bit.
Then I'd turn away and grab my usual baked potato.
One time, a classmate asked, "Why do you always eat baked potatoes?"
I answered, "I like them."
She rolled her eyes. "Come on, nobody actually likes potatoes every single day."
I simply smiled and kept quiet.
By then, I'd learned my lesson.
Being broke wasn't something to be ashamed of.
But getting singled out? That was something one couldn't say.
Even if I tried, nobody would believe me.
They'd say things like: "They're your parents. They wouldn't treat you badly, would they?"
"You're overthinking it."
"All parents love their child."
I'd heard those lines a million times.
So eventually, I stopped mentioning it.
*****
That winter, James wanted a pair of Nike basketball shoes.
They cost two hundred and fifty dollars.
Mom didn't hesitate at all. She bought them the very next day.
That same week, my shoes were falling apart.
My toes were sticking out of the front.
I went to Mom and said, "Mom, my shoes are spoiled."
She glanced at them and said, "They're still good."
"My toes are sticking out."
"Patch it up."
I wore those patched-up, cotton-stuffed shoes for another whole month.
Until my homeroom teacher, Jeanette Pierce, noticed.
She was a young woman who called me into the office and asked, "Is everything okay at home? Are you having any trouble?"
I shook my head. "No, everything's fine."
She looked at my shoes and didn't say anything.
The next day, she brought me a new pair of shoes.
She said, "I bought these a bit too big and can't wear them. You can have them."
I knew she was lying.
The shoes were brand new, and they were my exact size.
When I took them from her, my hands were trembling.
It was not from the cold.
That was the first time I truly understood what it felt like to be cared for.
It didn't come from my mom.
It came from a teacher I'd only known for less than half a year.
Clothes were no different.
Mom would take James to the mall to buy him new clothes.
Mine were always hand-me-downs from my older female cousins.
They never fit right and I never liked the colors.
But Mom would say, "As long as it fits, that's enough. We have to be thrifty."
I asked, "Why doesn't James wear hand-me-downs?"
Mom's face darkened.
She said, "James is a boy. He needs to hold his head high when he goes out. Who are you trying to impress, wearing nice clothes?"
Who was I trying to impress?
Those words stuck with me to this day.
It was like wearing clothes that actually fit was some kind of sin for me.
Like I wasn't worth spending money on.
*****
I ranked third in the whole school for SSAT.
James came in at one hundred and twentieth.
Mom threw a big celebration dinner because James "improved".
Last semester, he was one hundred and fiftieth.
"He moved up thirty spots, definitely worth celebrating," Mom said with a big smile, piling food onto James's plate.
I sat there, off to the side.
No one bothered to ask how I did.
So I spoke up. "I got third place in the whole school."
Mom gave a grunt.
"Then go to that free high school. It'll save us some money," she said.
Save money.
Those two words basically summed up my entire childhood.
When James spent money, it was called an "investment."
When I spent money, it was "wasting money."
James got into the best high school in the city. Tuition plus tutoring was 13 thousand dollars a year.
I went to a free public high school.
It was ranked fifth in the city.
Not the best, but it didn't cost a dime.
During high school, James's allowance went up to 700 dollars a month.
Mine went up to 200 dollars a month.
Breakfast, lunch, dinner, school supplies, study materials... Everything had to come out of that.
I started keeping track of every expense.
Not just what I spent, but how much the family spent on me versus James.
I bought a cheap notebook.
It cost two dollars and had a blue cover.
On the first page, I wrote: [Stella's Ledger.]
I wrote down every expense I could remember, one by one.
James's column included expenses for piano lessons, art classes, chess lessons, private middle school tuition, private high school tuition, tutoring, clothes, shoes, allowance, birthday cakes, electronics
My column had free public school, 25 dollars a week/200 dollars a month allowance, and hand-me-downs from relatives.
It took me three days to finish.
When I was done, I counted it all up.
By the end of freshman year, James' expenses totaled 105 thousand dollars.
Mine was 13.5 thousand dollars.
105 thousand dollars versus 13.5 thousand dollars.
I stared at those two numbers for a long time.
Then I turned the page and kept writing.
The notebook was thin.
My column was way too short. There wasn't much to write about.
Then something happened in the second semester of my freshman year.
After school, I went to the office to hand in my homework and overheard voices coming from the administration office next door.
It was my mom talking. "Ms. Williams, I wanted to ask, what do I need to do to move my kid from the honors class to a regular one?"
Hilda Williams, the administration officer, asked, "Which kid?"
Mom said my name. "Stella Hamilton. Freshman Class Three."
I stood outside the door, my homework nearly slipping from my hands.
Hilda said, "Stella? She's got great grades. Why would you want to move her?"
Mom's voice got quieter, but I could still hear every word.
She said, "The honors class is too much for her. Besides, spots are tight. There's no point wasting one on her."
Hilda was silent for a moment.
She said, "Waste? She's top ten in her grade. That's hardly a waste, right?"
Mom said something else.
I'll never forget those words.
She said, "Girls don't need to do that well. Good enough is fine. She can save her energy for helping out at home."
I leaned against the wall.
My hands were shaking.
Not from anger but from being cold.
It was a chill that started in my heart and seeped out.
It wasn't that Mom didn't know I was doing well.
She knew, but it didn't matter to her.
Or maybe she knew, and that was what scared her.
She was afraid I'd do too well, go too far, and get out of her control.
In the end, Hilda refused.
She said, "I can't move a top student out of the honors class."
Mom left.
She didn't know I'd heard it all.
I didn't say a word.
But on that day, I added a line to the last page of my ledger: [Second semester of freshman year, Mom went to the administration office to ask for me to be moved out of the honors class.]
I wrote down the date, time, every word she said, word for word.
That same semester, I spotted a poster on the school bulletin board.
It read: [Premier Scholars Full-Ride Program at Xeno University: Full tuition, living expenses, and accommodation.]
I stood in front of it for a long time, staring.
A full ride.
I wouldn't need a dime from my family.
I wrote down every requirement in my notebook.
From that day forward, I knew what my path was.