No Longer Their Backup Plan

4: 4

4

The day before I left, my mother did something she rarely did and came to me on her own. "Let's go to the mall this afternoon. You come too. Those few pieces you have are all worn out, so I'll pick up a couple of new ones for you while we're there."

I froze for a second, then followed her out the door.

At the mall, Chloe headed straight for the new-arrivals section, and Dylan hung on our father, dragging him off to look at game consoles.

My mother steered me to the clearance area, and I stood there sorting through a rack of markdowns by myself.

Professor Fry had reminded us a couple of days earlier that the temperature at the training site dropped sharply at night, and told us to bring a windbreaker.

I dug around for a long time before I found a dark gray shell jacket, the right size, thick fabric.

My mother glanced at the price tag and her brow creased at once. "Three hundred-something for this? It's the middle of summer, when are you even going to wear it?"

She pulled out a white T-shirt and pushed it into my hands.

"This one's fine. Forty-nine. Simple and clean. We can ring it up with Chloe's dress and hit the discount threshold too."

The air-conditioning in the mall was cranked high, and holding that thin T-shirt, all I felt was the cold creeping into my fingertips.

Halfway through, Dylan whined that he was thirsty and reached straight into my bag. "Sis, give me some money first, I'll go get drinks."

Both my hands were full of bags, and I couldn't stop him in time.

He slid my wallet out and ran off.

When he came back he had four cups of iced fruit tea in his hands, and, as usual, none of them was for me.

Chloe took hers and said with a laugh, "Our little brother really knows how to take care of people now."

I looked down at my empty palm and said nothing.

At dinner, when my mother ordered, she got all the sweet dishes Chloe liked and the fried food Dylan loved.

When it came to me, she just asked in passing, "Anything's fine with you, right?"

Before I could answer, she'd already called the server over to put the order in.

After dinner I wanted to run to the convenience store next door for a rice ball to tide me over, since I hadn't eaten enough at the table.

When I opened my wallet, the stack of cash inside was gone.

Nine hundred dollars. I'd saved it up last semester organizing data for the lab, plus a part-time job at a coffee shop.

My fingers went still, and I looked up at Dylan.

He immediately shrank behind our mother.

"Did you take my money?"

Her face darkened at once. "What are you yelling for? He's your little brother. So what if he takes a little of your money?"

I kept my eyes on Dylan. "Give it back."

His mouth twisted and he burst into tears right there. "I bought a limited-edition figure. Mom never lets me get one, so I just took a little."

"A little?" My voice had gone quiet. "That was nine hundred."

My father's face went dark too. "Serena, that's enough. Over a bit of money, you drive your little brother to tears in public. How do you think that makes us look?"

Chloe was busy soothing Dylan, my mother had him shielded completely, and my father just pulled him in close.

The light came down over them as they gathered together, like a complete family portrait.

Only I was standing on the outside.

In the end my father threw out one line. "Think hard about what kind of sister you've been."

Then he took them and drove off in the car.

My phone had died long ago, and I didn't have a cent on me, so all I could do was walk back along the road under the overpass.

The night wind carried the damp, my soles were rubbed raw and burning, and after a while even the pain went numb.

When the security guard saw me come back in the middle of the night, he blinked. "Serena, you walked all the way home?"

I said, "Yeah. It's fine."

The road ahead, anyway, was probably one I'd have to walk on my own.

When it was almost dawn, I dragged my suitcase out the door.

The living room was quiet. Only Chestnut heard the noise, climbed out of his bed, and followed me to the entryway to nuzzle at my pant leg.

I crouched down and rubbed his ears. "This time I'm really going."

He tipped his head up to look at me, tail wagging softly.

At ten in the morning, I met up with the project team at the entrance of the research institute.

Before we handed in our phones, the team leader told everyone to send one last message home.

I glanced down. In the family chat, my mother had just sent two lines.

"The temporary code expires today."

"If you want it renewed, apologize to your brother first."

I looked at them for a few seconds, then pressed the screen dark and shut the phone off.

The access was charity to begin with. I could do without it.