19
Monthly exams could be faked.
But the college entrance exams couldn’t be
manipulated.
Your ability determined your score.
Me, 1580.
Willow, 710.
As the top scorer, many reporters wanted to
interview me. Acceptance calls from Stanford
<
and MIT flooded my parents‘ phones.
But I knew nothing about it.
Until the admissions officers from Stanford
and MIT showed up at my door.
Only then did I learn that my parents had
been refusing to answer their calls.
“Why?”
I found my parents at the hospital, where they
were with Willow.
Mom said: “Your sister is very fragile right
now, so Rose, please understand-‘
“It’s all your fault!”
99
Dad was even more impatient: “If you hadn’t reported her, caused all this trouble, your
sister would already have her
recommendation. Now she can’t even get into
community college! How can you go to
Stanford with a clear conscience?!”
“Rose, how did you become so selfish?! What
have we ever done to you that you have to
treat your sister this way, make our family’s
lives so difficult?!”
Looking at their angry faces, I suddenly
laughed: “Do you really think you haven’t wronged me?”
I looked at Willow, shielded by Mom.
“Don’t you know Willow took my bedroom
because she hated me, wanted me out of the
house?”
“Don’t you know Willow isn’t actually that frail? She’s always faking it?”
“She spread rumors about me, got me isolated at school. Did you really not know?”
I shook my head, my voice soft but clear:
“You knew. You just didn’t care.”
Because they didn’t care.
So whether I lived well or not, whether I was
happy or not, what did it matter?
Mom was stunned by my questions.
Her lips moved, and after a long while, she
<
finally said: “Your sister is weak. You’re the
older sister, shouldn’t you give in to her?”
