Snow Scattered on the Eternal Wind

At my birthday party, my parents presented me with their gift.
A DNA test. One that said I wasn't their biological daughter.
My mothers smile was glacial.
Sharon, since you're not our real daughter, it's time you paid us back for the cost of raising you for seventeen years.
My father scoffed.
No wonder you don't look a thing like me. You've been mooching off the Prescott family name for far too long. Starting today, you're the help. We'll pay you five hundred dollars a month to work off your debt. Room and board not included.
I didn't cry or protest. I just nodded calmly.
After all, just last night, Id been standing outside their door and heard everything.
I heard my sister, Cecilia, cooing as she clung to their arms. "Mommy, Daddy, my only birthday wish is to be your one and only daughter, to have all of your love, just for me. So, can you make my sister be our maid for a year? Please?"
My father's face had melted with affection. "Of course. Anything for you."
My mother had smiled and added, "For this whole year, Mommy and Daddy belong only to our precious Ceci."
I had leaned against the wall, my eyes stinging with a sharp, hot ache.
They had forgotten. Cecilia and I are twins. We have the same birthday.
And my birthday wish?
To leave the Prescott house. Not for a yearforever.
1
Cecilia gasped, her hand flying to her mouth in mock horror.
"Sharon! No wonder you're so plain, you don't look like Mom or Dad at all. So you really are an impostor."
Her voice was loud, her performance theatrical.
It was as if she'd completely forgotten we were twins, that anyone with eyes could see the resemblance.
"Oh, wait, you're not my sister at all. You're just some stray they picked up off the street."
My mothers expression was distant, cold.
"Sharon, now that the truth is out, you're not a Prescott. This party is for our darling daughter, Cecilia. You have no right to be here."
I glanced up at Cecilia, her face glowing with triumph.
She wore a custom-made princess gown, and on her head sat a tiara that cost as much as a house.
Then I looked down at myself. My faded shirt and worn-out jeans, the cuffs frayed.
A bitter smile touched my lips.
The right to be here.
Id never really had it.
How can you lose something you never possessed?
My father's voice boomed. "Starting today, you'll move into the servant's quarters. Consider it a final kindness. Until you find your real parents, you can work here as a maid. I'll pay you five hundred a month, no room and board, to pay back the seventeen years of expenses you've cost us."
Whispers rippled through the crowd.
I was a pathetic clown on display, trapped under a sea of mocking, scornful eyes.
I bent down to pick up my backpack.
In a flash, Cecilia lunged forward and yanked it from my grasp.
The safety pin holding my broken zipper together popped, and the contents of my bag spilled across the floor.
"Aha!" Cecilia shrieked. "I knew it! You've been stealing from us!"
Amidst the scattered books lay a single, pink-wrapped sanitary pad.
Mom looked away, a flicker of discomfort on her face. "Ceci, let it go. It's just a pad."
Cecilia stamped her foot. "No, Mom! I'm the only daughter now. Who the hell is she, anyway? Shes been freeloading off us for years, and now shes stealing? I say she doesn't deserve it, and thats final."
Seeing her daughter upset, my mother immediately softened. "Okay, okay, darling, don't be angry. You're right. You're my only precious girl now. You can do whatever you want."
Satisfied, Cecilia ground her heel into the pad, twisting it into the polished floor.
"There. I don't want it anymore. You can have it."
I stared at the pad, now smeared with dirt and a footprint, and my throat felt like it was stuffed with wet cotton, heavy and suffocating.
In the end, I bent down and gathered only my books.
After the party, Maria, the housekeeper, led me to the storage room.
It was a tiny space, maybe fifty square feet, containing nothing but a wooden plank bed piled with junk and a single, rusty window.
Maria stood at the door, hesitating. "Miss... Sharon. Mr. and Mrs. Prescott... they remember the good things. Once they come to their senses, you'll be Miss Prescott again..."
Before she could finish, two cockroaches scurried out from a corner and vanished.
I pretended not to see the embarrassment on her face. "Thank you, I understand."
Maria shook her head and left, muttering under her breath. "They look so much alike. How could she not be theirs? So strange..."
I sat on the plank bed, staring blankly out the window into the pitch-black night.
It's okay. Just one more year, and I can leave this place for good.
Later that night, a dull ache throbbed in my lower abdomen.
Without any pads, I had to make do with wadded-up toilet paper.
As I was leaving the bathroom, I heard my parents' hushed voices.
"Honey, do you think we're being too hard on Sharon? What if she starts to hate us? She is our daughter, after all."
My father snorted. "Shes always bullying Ceci. As the older sister, she should know better. A little hardship will do her good."
"And once Ceci has had her fun this year, we'll just find an excuse. Say the DNA lab made a mistake. Shell be so thrilled to be a Prescott again, she won't even remember this."
My fingertips went ice-cold.
The thought was so absurd it was almost funny.
What gave them the right to think they could grind me into dust and I'd just obediently wait for them to pick me back up?
2
The next day, I went out to buy pads.
At the register, the card was declined. Insufficient funds.
But I knew I had two hundred dollars saved on it.
When I got back to the villa and pushed open the door, I found the three of them at the dining table, laughing together.
A gift bag sat on the table.
My mother was stroking a silk scarf, her touch full of affection. "Oh, Ceci, you're such a sweetheart. You even buy your mother gifts. This makes me so happy."
My father turned a plastic travel mug over in his hands, grinning from ear to ear. "I love mine too. That's my girl."
Cecilia pouted, leaning against my mother's shoulder. "But they only cost two hundred dollars. You're not mad they're so cheap, are you?"
My mother shook her head instantly. "Of course not, darling. Anything from you is a treasure, even if it only cost two dollars."
My father chimed in, using the opportunity to belittle me. "Exactly. Not like your sister. All she does is spend our money. Never bought us a single thing. Such an ungrateful brat. She could never compare to my Ceci"
They noticed me standing there and fell silent.
Cecilia tilted her head, a malicious grin spreading across her face.
That two hundred dollars
It was my allowance for the past two months.
It was all the money I had in the world.
A chill washed over me. Something inside my head snapped with a deafening crack.
The next thing I knew, I had grabbed Cecilia, my hand raised to strike.
But before my palm could connect, my father sent me flying with a vicious kick.
My spine slammed into the sharp corner of the coffee table.
The pain was so intense that my vision went black for a second.
Cecilia held up her arm, which had a faint red mark on it, and started wailing as if the world were ending. "Daddy, Mommy, it hurts so much! I think my arm is broken!"
My mother screamed, "Quick, call an ambulance!"
"No time for an ambulance!" my father shot back. "I'll drive her to the hospital myself."
Cecilia pointed a trembling finger at me, still crumpled on the floor. "I don't want to go in the car! That stray hurt me. I want her to carry me to the hospital. On her back."
The nearest hospital was twelve miles away.
My mother's eyes, now fixed on me, were chips of ice. "You're a nobody with no parents. We fed you and clothed you for seventeen years, and this is how you repay us? You dare to touch my daughter? You'll do as Ceci says."
When I struggled to get up, my father hauled me to my feet. "Stop faking it. It was just a little bump. Now get Cecilia on your back and get going. If her injury gets any worse, I swear I'll throw you out of this house for good."
I believed him.
But I couldn't leave. Not yet.
So I hoisted Cecilia onto my back and began the staggering walk to the hospital.
My father drove slowly behind us, the car crawling along the pavement.
He kept shouting, "Sharon, hold her steady! If you dare drop my precious daughter, I'll skin you alive!"
My mother complained from the passenger seat, "Walk faster! Haven't you eaten? Don't you dare let my baby's injury get worse."
Cecilia, draped over my back, whispered gleefully in my ear. "See? No one in this family loves you. You're just an unwanted leech."
Words like that used to cut me to the bone.
But now, I think Id accumulated so much pain that I was just numb.
When she got no reaction from me, Cecilia fell silent.
But just as we were nearing the hospital, I felt a sharp, piercing pain in my back.
She had plunged a safety pin, hidden in her pocket, deep into my flesh.
I cried out, stumbling forward, and we both crashed to the ground.
My parents slammed the car to a halt on the side of the road. They scrambled out, lifted Cecilia from on top of me, and rushed her into the emergency room without a backward glance.
My mother, trailing behind, looked over her shoulder at my ashen face.
"We're already at the hospital," she snapped impatiently. "Find a doctor yourself if you need one. We don't have time for you."
In the end, I didn't go inside.
I had no money.
Too exhausted to walk back, I just sat on the hospital steps until night fell, then finally made my way back to the villa.
They were already home. And standing with them in the living room was a haggard-looking couple, their clothes grimy, their posture timid.
"You're just in time," my father said, gesturing to the pair. "These are your biological parents. You can go with them now."
3
The silence in the room was absolute.
My mother came over and took my hand, though she couldn't meet my eyes. "Sharon, we were a family once. This is hard for me, too. But now that your real parents have been found, theres no reason for you to stay at the Prescott house any longer."
I thought I had no tears left to cry.
But they streamed down my face anyway.
These were the people I had cherished, the people I had placed at the very center of my world for seventeen years.
And now, they wouldn't even grant me a corner of their home to exist in.
My tears seemed to make my mother feel guilty.
She reached out to wipe them away, but Cecilia caught her arm.
"Congratulations, sister," Cecilia chirped. "You're not a parentless stray anymore."
The woman standing nearby, the one I was supposed to call my mother, scurried over and grabbed my hand.
Her grimy fingernails dug into my skin as she began to wail dramatically.
"Oh, my daughter! Mommy's finally found you! Come home with Mommy, quick!"
The man, my supposed father, started dragging me toward the door.
"That's right, let's go home. We've troubled Mr. and Mrs. Prescott for too long. We can't overstay our welcome."
"Wait," Cecilia said, her eyes glinting mischievously. "Sister, finding your real parents is a big deal. Don't you think you should kneel and formally accept them? Or... are you ashamed of them because they're poor? Do you look down on them?"
I froze, turning to my parents. "Is that what you think I should do? Kneel to them?"
They both looked away.
Cecilia kept prodding. "Go on, kneel! We're all watching."
I laughed.
Something inside me, something I had been holding together for years, shattered into a million pieces.
I dropped to my knees, but I faced my parents. I bowed my head to the floor, once, hard. "Our debt as parent and child is settled. From this moment on, I have nothing to do with the Prescott family."
My parents exchanged a look, a flicker of unease in their eyes.
But I was already on my feet, turning to leave with my 'real parents.'
My mother ran after me, her voice a hollow bluff. "It's not settled! Not until... not until you pay back every penny we spent on you for the last seventeen years!"
I stopped but didn't turn back.
"Fine," I said softly.
They thought they had spent a fortune on me.
But they forgot.
The daughter who was showered with affection, the one who was raised on endless streams of money, was Cecilia.
And me?
My allowance was three hundred dollars a month.
And most of that was extorted by Cecilia, who got thirty thousand a month.
If I refused to give it to her, she would run home crying, telling them I was organizing classmates to bully and isolate her.
I was locked in my room countless times, denied meals.
One night, during a torrential downpour, Cecilia claimed I was driving her to the brink of suicide.
They made me stand outside in the rain all night.
My fever spiked to 104 degrees, and no one cared.
It was always like that, for as long as I could remember.
A single word from Cecilia determined my guilt or innocence, my happiness, my life.
My dignity.
My explanations, my tears, my pain they were worthless in this house.
Just like me.
Cheap.
That night, I moved into my 'real parents'' apartment in a run-down tenement.
There were no spare rooms, no extra blankets.
I spent the night curled up on the floor of the only bathroom.
The window, patched with newspaper, was cracked and let in a constant, chilling draft.
The next day, I woke up dizzy and burning with a high fever.
Through a haze of delirium, I heard the woman's panicked voice on the phone.
"Mr. Prescott? Mrs. Prescott? The the girl, she has a fever! It's 104!"
"Well, what are you waiting for? Take her to a hospital!"
The phone was on speaker, and Cecilia's voice came through, sharp and clear.
"Mom, Dad, she just left last night and now she has a fever? That's too much of a coincidence. It's obviously a pity play to test you. If you fall for it, you're playing right into her hands."
A long silence followed. Then, my father's cold voice cut through the air. "Don't do anything. She's the one who said she wants nothing to do with us. Let the ungrateful brat learn her lesson."
My mother's voice was full of impatience. "She's your daughter now. Stop calling us for every little thing. We're busy getting ready for our world trip with our darling daughter. Goodbye."
No one came for me.
I was left to waste away in that squalid apartment.
With my last ounce of strength, I clawed my way to the door, crawled into the hallway, and then the world went black.

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