I still remember the exact words my father said as he threw my duffel bag onto our front lawn.
“Your sister deserves the future, not you.”
I was nineteen, shivering with pneumonia, my college fund suddenly gone. That night, I slept in my old Honda Civic, coughing until my chest ached, unable to process how my own parents could discard me like yesterday’s trash.
I had no idea that five years later, my sister Amanda would walk into my office, résumé in hand, completely unaware I would be her interviewer. The look on her face when I said, “We’re here to discuss your qualifications,” is something I will never forget.
I grew up in Westerville, Ohio, a typical middle-class suburb with neat lawns and good schools. My parents, Richard and Diane, seemed like normal, loving people. Dad worked as an accountant at a respected local firm and Mom taught third grade at the elementary school. From the outside, we looked like the perfect American family, complete with a golden retriever named Cooper and annual summer trips to Lake Erie.
But beneath that picture-perfect façade, there was always an imbalance that I tried to ignore.
My sister Amanda arrived when I was three years old, and from the beginning, she was treated differently. While I was loved, she was adored. Where I received congratulations for achievements, she received extravagant celebrations. When I won the sixth-grade science fair with a project on renewable energy, my parents nodded and said, “Good job.” Three years later, when Amanda placed third with her baking-soda volcano, they took her out for an expensive dinner and bought her a new bike.
I told myself this was normal, that younger siblings always got special treatment. But deep down, I knew something was off.
Throughout high school, I worked hard, maintaining a 3.8 GPA while holding down a part-time job at the local hardware store. Every dollar I earned went into my college fund, which my parents had started when I was born. They promised to match what I saved, and I believed them. I dreamed of becoming an architect, sketching building designs in notebooks that filled my bookshelf.
Amanda, meanwhile, breezed through school on natural talent and charm. She joined every club that caught her interest and quit just as easily when she got bored. My parents never pushed her to get a job or save money.
“Your sister needs to focus on her potential,” my mother would say whenever I pointed out the discrepancy.
I was ecstatic when I got accepted to Ohio State University. It wasn’t Ivy League, but it had a solid architecture program, and with my savings combined with what my parents promised, I could graduate debt-free. I moved into the dorms in September, feeling like my life was finally beginning.
Three months into my freshman year, I caught pneumonia. It hit me hard and fast, leaving me bedridden with a fever that wouldn’t break. My roommate drove me to the hospital when I started coughing blood. The doctor said I needed bed rest and prescribed antibiotics that made me dizzy and nauseated. I had to withdraw for the semester, losing my housing in the process.
When I called my parents, explaining that I needed to come home to recover for a few months, there was a long silence on the line. Then my father said,
“We need to talk when you get here.”
Something in his tone sent a chill through me that had nothing to do with my fever.
I arrived home weak and exhausted to find my mother crying in the kitchen and my father sitting stiffly at the dining table. They sat me down and explained that they had made a difficult “family decision.”
“Amanda has been offered early acceptance to Princeton,” my father said, as if discussing a business transaction. “It’s her dream school, but even with a partial scholarship, we can’t afford the tuition.”
He folded his hands, eyes flat.
“We’ve decided to use your college fund for Amanda’s education. She has a real shot at greatness, Steven. You can take out loans or go to community college.”
I stared at them in disbelief.
“But that’s my money too. I saved half of it.”
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