The Love You Forced On Me, I No Longer Want

2: 2

I wiped my eyes and sent the same message to each of them.

【Fine. Call off the wedding between me and Simon.】

Simon took a few minutes to reply.

【Sulking won't get you anywhere. I'm not going to coax you. Don't climb up onto some high horse you can't climb back down from.】

His tone was pure contempt, and it made my own foolishness plain to me.

Back in high school, when I was bullied, Simon was the only one who helped me. He liked me then. He even confessed it to me himself. But between me and Zara, he always chose Zara.

I let out a breath and held my emotions together.

If they didn't care about me, then I'd stop clinging.

Right then the last bus of the night pulled up in front of me, and I stepped on board.

The bus rolled forward. Outside, the sky had already gone dark.

My phone stayed dead quiet. Not one person had spared me a thought.

No. They didn't even know I'd left the house.

In the end I got off at some random stop, turned, and checked into a hotel. A rare bit of luxury after all these years.

From the day I came back to the Swansons, they never gave me a single cent. Even when I asked, it slipped straight out of their minds.

I'd go to my mother, and she'd tell me to ask my father.

I'd go to my father, and he'd tell me to ask my mother, since she managed all the money in the house.

Yet they never forgot Zara's allowance. While I was fretting over a pair of shoes with the soles peeling off, Zara's closet was crammed with designer bags.

While I skipped breakfast to save money, Zara toured the world on the thirty million our parents had handed her.

All these years, my days were packed with studying and part-time work. It was no different from being back at the orphanage.

Having a family was worse than having none.

I lived like that, worn down and scraping by, and they still called me tacky, said I never dressed up, that I wasn't fit to be seen, that I didn't look anything like a Swanson daughter.

Lying on the soft bed, I suddenly felt like crying. It was so comfortable.

Really, if they'd just been a little kinder to me before, I'd have been content. But they never were.

I slept straight through to the next afternoon, and my phone was buried in messages.

All of them from my parents and Simon.

【Where are you? Today is the day for the wedding photos. Why aren't you here?】

【I only had Zara stand in for the shots. Are you really going to sulk with me over that? Once I'm actually angry, don't come crying about it.】

【Can't you show a little sense? Zara's crying now. She's afraid you'll blame her. She's your sister. How can you not give way on something this small?】

Toward the end, they lost their tempers completely.

【Rita Swanson! Get out of the Swanson house! From now on the Swansons have no daughter who plays these scheming little games! If you want to try your playing-hard-to-get tricks, you'd better check whether you're even worth it!】

Strange. These were ugly words, and yet right now they left me completely unmoved.

Besides, someone had already gone to take the wedding photos with Simon. If I showed up, I'd only be in the way.

I didn't reply to a single one of those messages. Instead I switched to another app and got serious about finding a place to live.

It was time I gave myself a home.