They Never Chose Me

On the day of our family trip, I woke up early, only to be shocked to find the house completely empty. While I was still wondering what was going on, a message from my younger sister, Cynthia, popped up in the family group chat. "Oh no, I forgot to tell everyone in this group that the departure time had been moved up!" The next second, the message was recalled. As I stared blankly at the now-empty chat, I felt my eyes sting. At that moment, I realized they had another family group chat—one that did not include me. While I was still in a daze, Mom called. "I'm sorry, Yesenia. We moved the departure time up by an hour and forgot to tell you. Hurry and get a cab over here. Maybe you can still make—" Just as she was speaking, my older brother, Gordon, interrupted her from the side. "Since she didn't come, just forget it. Hasn't Cynthia always wanted to enjoy having the whole family dote on her for once? We can treat this as fulfilling her wish." His voice was low, but I heard every word. I sniffled and forced down the sadness rising in my chest. "I think I'll just skip it. You guys have a good time." After hanging up the call, I changed my train ticket from Hoschland to Liboston without hesitation. My childhood friend, Zavier, and I had long ago promised to go see the vast grasslands together. Now was the perfect chance to finally make good on that promise. For the past eighteen years, my family had always favored Cynthia, who was smarter and prettier than me. It was Zavier who never looked down on me for being ordinary and had always stayed by my side. Delighted, I was just about to tell him the good news when I saw his latest social media post first. "Off to chase the waves with my princess!" Then, there was an attachment of an intimate photo of him and Cynthia together on the high-speed train to Hoschland. In that split second, the last shred of hope in my heart snapped completely. I opened my computer and changed my university application. I gave up the local university Zavier and I had promised to attend together and chose one in the south instead. A thousand kilometres away. Then, clutching my changed train ticket, I took a cab to the high-speed railway station alone. Since no one cared about me, I would go out on my own and seek the light that belonged to me. Chapter 1 The Unwanted Daughter The day I returned from Liboston, my family also came back from their trip to Hoschland. As soon as Mom walked through the door, she glanced at the empty kitchen and immediately began complaining to me. "You knew Cynthia gets carsick and can't eat anything on the road, yet you didn't prepare a meal at home beforehand. As the older sister, you don't have the slightest sense of responsibility!" Faced with Mom's accusation, I was speechless. Although I was technically the older sister, I had only been born an hour before Cynthia. However, ever since we were children, I had been expected to take care of her and give way to her in everything. If I fell short in even the slightest way, I would be branded as vicious. At the same time, I had only been home for less than ten minutes. I had not even had time to take a sip of water. It was especially difficult to get a cab at the high-speed railway station, so I had specifically asked Mom and Dad in the group chat what time they would be returning, hoping they could pick me up on their way home. However, my message went unanswered, as though it had sunk to the bottom of the ocean. With no other choice, I resigned myself to waiting in line. I stood beneath the scorching sun for a full two hours before finally managing to get a cab. Just then, Cynthia nudged Mom's arm and silently mouthed at her to check her phone. Mom froze for a moment before opening the family group chat. Only then did she see the message I had sent. In that split second, a trace of guilt appeared in her eyes, but she still turned on me reproachfully. "Next time, remember to call us directly if you need anything. Nobody has time to sit around checking all those useless messages in the group chat all day." What she did not know was that I already knew the truth. It was not that she did not have time to check the family group chat. It was because they had already created another one exclusively for their beloved Cynthia. It was an exclusive group dedicated to doting on her—one without me as an eyesore. If I remembered correctly, that group had existed since I was in eighth grade. Back then, I had been hit by a car on my way home from school and knocked unconscious. A passerby tagged my parents dozens of times in our family group chat, yet neither of them responded. In the end, only when the traffic police had obtained my parents' phone numbers through the local police station did they finally show up and take me to the hospital. In contrast, Cynthia had never said a single word in that group chat, yet Mom and Dad always knew exactly where she was and what she was doing. In the past, I had refused to believe that my parents did not love me, so I had never allowed myself to suspect such a thing. Now, I finally understood that whether it was that group chat or this family, I was the unnecessary one. As I thought about it, I lowered my head and answered quietly, "Got it. There won't be a next time." I made a note to myself that I would never trouble them again, and I would never again place my hopes in the illusion of familial love. Chapter 2 A Gift That Was Never Meant for Me In the end, Mom and Dad decided to take Cynthia out to eat. Before leaving, she asked me, "Do you want to come with us?" Before I could answer, Gordon spoke first. "She never eats with us. It's not like you don't know that." After saying that, he even shot me a disgusted glare. "You don't have an ounce of warmth in you. Having such a cold-blooded sister like you is honestly embarrassing!" His words made my face flush with embarrassment. I wished I could find a crack in the floor and crawl into it. At the same time, I felt terribly wronged. Cynthia loved spicy food, so whenever we went out to eat, they always chose restaurants that had spicy food in them. However, I had a weak stomach and could not handle spice. Most of the time, all I could eat was plain food. However, Mom and Dad would scold me for being fussy and complain that I was ruining Cynthia's appetite. After it happened enough times, I simply stopped going with them. However, my silent endurance never earned me any sympathy. Instead, it became proof that I was "cold-blooded." Cynthia stuck out her tongue and stopped trying to persuade me as she followed Mom and Dad out the door. Then, I went into the kitchen and made myself a bowl of plain noodles. After that, I sat alone at the dining table and quietly finished my meal before carrying the bowl back to the kitchen and washing it. Just as I had put down the dishcloth, my phone rang. It was Mom. Apparently, after dinner, they had taken Cynthia to the mall to buy clothes. Mom pointed at a row of T-shirts behind her and asked, "Which color do you like? Pick one." Just as I was hesitating between the blue and white T-shirts, she waved her hand generously and said, "We'll take both!" As soon as the call ended, I burst into tears. This time, they were tears of joy. Compared to the expensive designer dresses Cynthia owned, those T-shirts were practically nothing. But at the very least, they proved that Mom still had a place for me in her heart. For a moment, I even had the impulse to change my university application back and stay here with my parents. Not long afterward, Cynthia and the others returned. Sure enough, they were carrying dozens of shopping bags, and every single one contained the latest pieces from major luxury brands, all bought for Cynthia. I hurried over and reached out to take the clothes they had bought for me. At that moment, I heard Cynthia boasting gleefully, "This is nice! All these outfits only cost forty-eight thousand, and they even gave us two T-shirts for free!" In that split second, my hand froze in midair. Only then did I know that they had not suddenly changed and started caring about me. As I thought about it, bitterness filled my heart in an instant. "You can give the T-shirts to whoever you want. I don't want them anymore." I dropped the bag and hurried back to my room. The moment I closed the door, the tears I had been holding back finally burst out. … Through the crack beneath the door came the dissatisfied complaints of Mom, Dad, and Gordon. "Seriously. Cynthia was kind enough to give her two new shirts, yet she doesn't have the slightest bit of gratitude! I have no idea who she inherited that stubborn personality from!" "Exactly," Gordon immediately chimed in. "She's nowhere near as lovable as Cynthia. No wonder we don't like her!" Then, without the slightest hesitation, he asked Mom and Dad, "Are you sure you actually gave birth to twins back then? How I wish Cynthia was my only sister!" I whispered silently in my heart, 'Don't worry. Your wish will come true soon…' Soon, my brother would no longer have me as an eyesore of a sister. Mom and Dad would no longer have an unlikable daughter like me either. I would no longer have to beg for the love that would never be mine. Chapter 3 I Was Never His Exception After washing up, I lay down in bed when a message from Zavier came through. The first thing he asked was, "Have you submitted your university application? You chose Alridge University, right?" Zavier had dreamed of going to Cuenton City for as long as I could remember. He had even declared that he would attend no university other than Quixen University. However, just a month before the exam, he had suddenly changed his mind, insisting that he would never leave home and listing the local Alridge University as his first choice. At the time, I could not help asking him why. He hesitated for a long while before finally giving me an answer. "That's because Cynthia's scores were too low on her last few mock exams. She has a better chance of getting accepted if she applies to a local university." At that moment, I could hardly believe what I was hearing. "Did you actually give up on your own dream just so you could attend the same university as her?" Zavier sounded completely unconcerned as he replied, "It's just a university. How could that possibly be more important than Cynthia?" Hearing his words, I suddenly felt like laughing. Back when I first learned that Zavier's dream school was Quixen University, I had been so anxious that I could barely eat or sleep for days. At the time, my grades were only good enough to get me into an average university. A prestigious school like Quixen University was something I would not even have dared dream of. However, because I wanted to keep being Zavier's classmate, I forced myself to study with everything I had. Day and night, I worked through practice questions and memorized vocabulary. When the results came out, and I saw my grades on the screen, I cried from sheer joy. Yet for the sake of continuing to take care of Cynthia, he had abandoned his dream without a second thought. At the same time, he had abandoned his promise to me just as easily. Suppressing the bitterness in my heart, I asked him another question. "In that case, why did you insist that I apply to Alridge University with you?" Before he answered, countless possibilities ran through my mind. I thought he could not bear to be separated from me, or maybe he was worried about me going somewhere far away alone. While I was in thought, Zavier suddenly gave a meaningful chuckle. Then, he replied, "Flowers have always needed leaves to make them look more beautiful. Cynthia is the flower, and you're the leaf. Without you beside her to make her stand out, wouldn't Cynthia lose some of her brilliance?" His words struck my heart like a sledgehammer. The pain was so sharp that I could not stop myself from trembling. The idea that I was merely a leaf meant to accentuate the beautiful flower had been the nightmare haunting me since the day I was born. Everyone around me, including my own family, had used that same reasoning to belittle me while praising Cynthia. Only Zavier had ever told me, "You are who you are. No matter how ordinary you may be, you'll always be different in my eyes." I had believed him. Naively, I had thought I would always be the one exception in his heart—until he met Cynthia. From that moment on, the gentle gaze that had once followed me everywhere never left her again. I closed my eyes and forced down the bitterness rising inside me. "If there's nothing else, I'm going to sleep." Without waiting for his response, I hung up. I was about to turn off the light when I looked up and saw Cynthia standing in the doorway with a glass of milk. "Yesenia, can I come in?" I nodded. Then, she walked over and handed me the milk. "Oh, right. We're taking a family portrait tomorrow. Make sure you don't oversleep again!" With that, she winked playfully at me, then got up and left. At first, I wanted to tell her I was not going. But when the words reached my lips, I swallowed them back. When we were little, Cynthia had been frail and sickly. In order to devote more of their time and energy to caring for her, Mom and Dad had sent me to live with Grandma in the countryside. They were always too busy to visit me, but during holidays, they would mail me a family portrait. In every photo, Cynthia stood in the center, surrounded by Mom, Dad, and Gordon, smiling blissfully. While I envied her, taking a family portrait together with them gradually became something I desperately longed for. After I eventually moved back home, I should have had countless opportunities to fulfill that wish. Strangely, however, every time the day of the family portrait arrived, I, someone who had always kept a regular sleep schedule, would somehow oversleep. No matter how loudly Mom and Dad pounded on my bedroom door, I would not react at all. After it happened several times, they completely lost patience and stopped waiting for me. Even though I had now made up my mind to leave, I still did not want to leave behind any regrets. To make sure I would not miss it this time, I set three alarms and turned their volumes all the way up. Although I normally went to bed at ten, that night I turned off the lights and closed my eyes before nine. I never expected history to repeat itself. Chapter 4 The Truth Behind My Oversleeping When I opened my eyes the next morning, it was already ten o'clock. I did not even stop to put on my shoes before jumping out of bed and rushing outside. The moment I opened the door, I ran straight into Mom, Dad, and the others, who had just returned from the photo shoot. At that moment, despair overwhelmed me as I collapsed onto the floor. My foot landed on a shard of broken glass, slicing it open, causing blood to pour from the wound. A sharp pain shot through me, but I barely felt it. My mind was filled with nothing but regret and self-blame. Gordon glanced coldly at the blood on the floor and sneered. "Are you so desperate to avoid taking pictures with us that you've resorted to hurting yourself now? Yesenia, your hypocrisy and coldheartedness have reached a whole new low." After throwing those words at me, he ignored me completely and went straight back to his room. Mom and Dad merely let out deep sighs before going off to attend to their own things. On the other hand, Cynthia stayed behind and eagerly told me all about the interesting things that had happened during the photo shoot. She even tried to comfort me as she said, "I know you must be really upset that you missed the family portrait, but I thought of a way to make it up to you. We can just photoshop you into the picture! What do you think?" She sounded as though she were genuinely considering my feelings, but her eyes were filled with mockery and smug satisfaction. For some reason, the glass of milk she had given me last night suddenly flashed through my mind. I shot to my feet and grabbed Cynthia by the arm. "Tell me the truth! Did you put something in that milk? Is that why I overslept?" In that split second, tears instantly welled up in her eyes. "Yesenia, what are you talking about? I don't understand." As we stood there confronting each other, my eyes suddenly landed on the security camera in the corner of the living room. Then, my eyes lit up. I pushed her aside and rushed into the study, where I pulled up the surveillance footage from the night before. What appeared on the screen made my heart jolt. There was Cynthia, secretly hiding in the kitchen as she dropped a white pill into a glass of milk. Then, she carried that same glass into my room. At that moment, my anger reached its breaking point when I realized all those times I had overslept had not been accidents at all. Just like the secret family group chat, it had all been deliberate. She had done it because she wanted our family's love and attention entirely to herself. The realization shocked me so badly that my legs nearly gave out. As I stumbled, my arm accidentally knocked against the mouse, causing the surveillance timeline to jump back to half a month earlier. Once again, Cynthia appeared on the screen, slipping something into my milk. At that moment, the blood in me ran cold. Half a month ago, it was the first day of the SAT. It was one thing for her to stop me from appearing in our family portraits, but I couldn't believe she had actually tried to destroy my future too! Fortunately, my stomach had been acting up that day. After drinking the milk, I had repeatedly gone to the bathroom, flushing much of the sleeping medication out of my system. That was the only reason disaster had been avoided. When I took the evidence to Mom and Dad, the furious reaction I had imagined never came. They did not even say anything harsh to Cynthia. Instead, they merely told her lightly, "Don't do that again next time, okay?" Then, they turned around and blamed me. "Nothing even happened in the end. Do you really need to make such a huge deal out of it? Look how badly you've frightened Cynthia!" After that, they pulled Cynthia into their arms, soothing her gently as though she were the one who had been wronged. In the meantime, Gordon hurried over as well. "Exactly. We're all family. Do you really have to be so petty about this? Even if Cynthia did something wrong, are you saying you bear absolutely no responsibility yourself?" I raised my head and looked at the three people standing before me. They had once been the three most important people in my life. Yet to protect Cynthia, they were now willing to disregard even the most basic distinction between right and wrong. I could not help laughing. As I laughed, tears began rolling down my cheeks. Mom and Dad merely looked at me with disgust. "It's just a family portrait. We can just take you back tomorrow and have another one taken!" When I heard that, I stopped laughing. Then, I said calmly, "There's no need." There was no need to retake the family portrait, and there was no need for me to ever return to this home again. Without another word, I went back to my room and pulled out my suitcase. I packed the pitifully few belongings in that house that actually belonged to me. Then, I blocked every member of my family, left the group chat named "One Big Loving Family," and walked out of the house without looking back. I boarded the train heading south. From that day forward, I would no longer look back at the past.