I had already gotten used to it over the years.
Alice snuggled happily into my mother’s embrace and said, “It’s okay, Mom. You’re the person I love the most. I will do anything for you.”
My mother looked at her softly and gently stroked Alice’s head.
I felt dazed as I observed the scene.
I used to receive that same gentleness before I was five. However, everything changed when Alice came to live with us.
I remembered that time when she pointed at my room and asked my mother, “Mommy, is this my room?”
“Yes,” my mother answered gently. Then, I was forced to move into a storage room, where they hastily set up a bed. That storage room soon became my new bedroom.
Back then, I told my mother that I didn’t want to sleep there. Initially, I thought she would comfort me like she used to. However, she only said, “Vanessa, Alice’s parents died because they saved you. Yet, you’re unwilling to even give her a room. Just stay there for now. I’ll make you another room later.”
Thus, I accepted her decision and tried to be good to Alice. Yet, when Alice was just three years old, she already knew how to pour freshly made milk onto her hand and cried out for my mother. As I desperately tried to explain what had really happened, all I got in return was a harsher scolding from my mother.
“If you make a mistake, you must admit to them! Alice is only three, yet you’re blaming her for something she didn’t do. You’ve disappointed me, Vanessa.”
At first, my mother may have really wanted to prepare a new room for me. Alas, under Alice’s constant manipulations, she ended up believing that I only deserved to live in the storage room.
I had waited for my mother to take me away from that little room ever since I was five. Sadly, as I waited for years and years, only death awaited me.
“Alice, hearing you say that makes me jealous. If Mom is the person you love the most, what about me?” Liam joked from the side.
The comment brought giggles from both Alice and my mother. Alice blushed and playfully hit Liam.
The atmosphere in the car was endlessly cheerful.
They were so happy. It was at that moment that I realized I was completely out of place.
I wasn’t their family. I was nothing to them.
I desperately tried to escape, but my soul was bound to my mother’s side, unable to go anywhere. All I could do was watch as they laughed while mocking me.
