Taming The Sisters Who Scorned Me

Growing up, every woman I knew was in love with Bennett.

It didn't matter if they were the arrogant, untouchable heiresses or the refined, overachieving seniors. Bennett was the sun, and everyone else was just a planet caught in his orbit.

Then came the accident. A high-speed crash that left the younger sister, Maisie, blind, and the older one, Margot, paralyzed.

Bennett did what he does best: he ran. He fled to Europe, leaving me behind with a heavy request: Take care of them for me.

They hated me for it. They convinced themselves I was the one who drove him away, that I had schemed to get him out of the picture. They made my life a living hell, treating me like a stray dog they were forced to feed. I endured it allthe insults, the coldness, the impossible demandsall for the sake of the massive paycheck that kept my family afloat.

But the day I finally hit my "freedom number" in my savings account, I didn't just walk away. I flipped the table.

"Im done being your punching bag. I quit."

I expected them to scream. I expected them to throw things.

Instead, Maisiethe sister who hadn't seen a glimmer of light in monthssnapped her eyes open and locked onto me with terrifying precision.

And Margotthe sister who supposedly couldn't walkwas already at the door, closing it with a click that sounded like a trap snapping shut.

The bowl hit the floor with a wet, heavy thud.

The soup was meant for my face, but Maisies aim had suffered since she lost her sight. Hot broth splattered across my sneakers, soaking into the canvas.

"Where is Bennett? He said he was coming today. He promised."

Maisie sat perfectly still, her eyes closed, her long lashes casting shadows over her pale, elegant face. She looked like a porcelain doll someone had tried to break but couldn't quite shatter.

I knelt down immediately to pick up the ceramic shards. Bennett was likely in London by now, probably at some underground club or a gala. The moment he realized Maisie and Margot had destroyed their bodies racing for his attention, he vanished. To him, they weren't tragic figures; they were liabilities.

"Hes dealing with some things, Maisie," I said, my voice practiced and neutral. "He told me hed be here as soon as the dust settles."

"Liar." Her voice was a sharp blade. "He told me hed overcome anything to be with me. It was you, wasn't it? You did something to make him leave."

She reached out, her hands clawing through the air until she found the sound of my breathing.

"Don't move," I warned, seeing her bare feet inches away from the broken porcelain. "Theres glass everywhere."

She didn't listen. She stepped forward, her skin pressing into a sharp edge, but she didn't even flinch. She found me, her fingers tangling into my hair, pulling my head back so I had no choice but to look up at her sightless face.

"Youve always wanted this, haven't you, Casey?" she hissed. "You wanted him gone so you could have me all to yourself. Youre the reason hes hiding."

The pain in my scalp made me want to shove her away, but I stayed still. I had loved her once. That was the pathetic truth. But Bennett hadn't left because of jealousy. He left because he was a coward who couldn't handle the sight of a wheelchair or a white cane.

I couldn't tell her that. Not if I wanted to keep getting paid.

Bennett had promised me five thousand a month just to keep them happy and keep his name clean in their ears. "Tell them I love them," hed said. "And for god's sake, don't call me."

I was a college kid from a family that lived paycheck to paycheck. I needed that money. I needed to keep my mouth shut and play the martyr.

Maisie kept screaming at me to call him, to apologize for whatever imaginary sin Id committed. I remained silent, a ghost in my own life.

It was only when a single, cold tear escaped my eye and landed on her wrist that she finally stopped talking.

My mother was the housekeeper for Bennetts family. I grew up in the shadows of their mansion, the "plus-one" by necessity, never by choice. My mothers mantra was simple: Make Bennett happy. If hes happy, were safe.

I followed him to the elite private high school on a scholarship that felt more like a leash. That was where I met Maisie.

In that world, wealth was the only armor that mattered. The kids there didn't bother with the "helps kid," but their lackeysthe ones desperate for a crumb of statusneeded someone to kick.

One afternoon, while I was doing Bennetts chores in the schools courtyard, a group of them cornered me. They called me Bennetts lapdog. They laughed about how much dignity a person could sell for a tuition check.

I held my broom and kept my head down. I was the quiet one. Even my mother wished I was more like Bennettbright, loud, effortless. She never understood that I didn't have the luxury of being reckless.

They started pushing me, bored with my silence, when a girl stepped out from behind a massive oak tree. Her blazer was draped over one shoulder, her tie loosened with a deliberate, messy grace.

"God, you guys are exhausting," she said, yawning. "Im trying to nap, and all I hear is the sound of insecurity. Move."

That was Maisie. She was the princess I had dreamed about, the one who stepped out of the light to save the boy in the dirt.

I fell for her in that moment. Hard.

Later, she fell for Bennett. She used me to funnel gifts to him, occasionally tossing me a gourmet cupcake as a thank-you. Those tiny crumbs of kindness were enough to fuel a fire in me for years. I hid my feelings so deep they became a part of my DNA. No one knew. Not even the internetI only wrote about her on a private, anonymous blog, calling her "The Light."

Until Bennett found it.

He walked up to Maisie at a party, slinging an arm around her. "Hey, Im playing matchmaker. My boy Casey here is obsessed with you. You two should get a room."

I remember the ice that filled my veins. I tried to laugh it off, tried to pull him away.

Maisies reaction was swifter. "Are you joking? I wouldn't even date you on a good day, Bennett. Why would I want the guy who disappears into the background the moment the lights come on?"

They laughed. They turned it into a game of tag, chasing each other across the lawn while I stood there, rooted to the spot. I couldn't even look up. I just gripped the hem of my shirt and waited for them to finish, because as long as my mom worked for his dad, I had to stay.

I watched them for years after that. I saw her playfully mess up his hair; I saw him flirt with her and her older sister, Margot, playing them against each other like a deck of cards.

Now, my hair was finally long enough for her to grab, but she wasn't doing it out of love. She was doing it to hurt me.

After I cleaned up the glass, I saw her sitting on the rug, her heels bleeding onto the fibers. She didn't seem to care.

I went downstairs to grab the first-aid kit.

Margot was in the living room, her wheelchair parked by the floor-to-ceiling windows. she was reading a financial magazine, her glasses perched on the bridge of her nose. She looked up as I passed.

"Are you alright, Casey? Maisies moods have been... difficult. Ill talk to her."

Liar. She had listened to the entire ten-minute tirade from downstairs without lifting a finger. She liked having me as the lightning rod. It kept the storm away from her.

Id been taking care of them for a month. Maisie was the volatile one, but Margot was the one who truly unnerved me. She was composed, "proper," and terrifyingly smart. She was a top graduate from the same university I attended.

The first time I really "met" her, she was a guest speaker at school. It was raining, and I was hauling a dozen heavy packages for Bennett, my raincoat tucked over the boxes to keep them dry. I slipped on the marble stairs right as she was walking out, surrounded by a swarm of admirers.

She had knelt down, her silk dress hitting the wet pavement, and helped me gather the boxes. She was so gentle then. I actually thought she was different.

But then, a week into this job, I took her to the park. She complained about the sun on her legs, so I draped my own jacket over her lap while I ran to the kiosk to buy a proper throw.

When I got back, my jacket was gone.

"A kid ran by and grabbed it," she said, her voice smooth and sympathetic. "Im so sorry, Casey. People can be so cruel."

Later that evening, as I rolled her toward the exit, I saw a flash of navy blue in a trash can near the gate. It was my jacket. A 0-020 jacket Id saved up for.

I asked a gardener nearby if hed seen who threw it away.

"The lady in the chair," he said, not even looking up from his shears.

That was when I knew. Margot didn't just dislike me; she found me subhuman. My belongings were filth in her presence. I took the jacket home, washed it three times, and vowed never to let her see me wear it again.

I couldn't quit. Not yet. Between Bennetts "hush money" and the sisters exorbitant salarythey paid me nearly $8,000 a month just because I was "reliable"I was finally solving my familys problems. My fathers dialysis was covered. My mother could finally breathe.

So I played the part. When Maisie cried for Bennett, I texted him.

Please, just send her something, I wrote.

Dude, Im literally seeing a girl whos a literal countess right now, Bennett replied. Just tell her Im buried in grad school work. Make something up.

I told her he was studying. She laughed, a bitter, hollow sound. "Bennett never studied a day in his life. He bought his way into a degree. Try again, Casey."

Eventually, I begged him for a voice note.

"Hey Maisie, you little brat," Bennetts voice boomed through the phone, bright and effortless as always. "Im grinding over here so I can come home a success. Wait for me, okay? Miss you."

Maisie saved that clip. She played it until her phone battery died, over and over, huddled in the dark of her room.

Did she really love him that much?

I remembered her buying him a $20,000 diamond watch for his eighteenth birthday and tossing me a twenty-dollar bill for the "delivery fee." That was my value in her eyes. The price of a pizza.

On my own eighteenth birthday, I was alone in a classroom at midnight, finishing the homework Bennett and Maisie had dumped on my desk so they could go out for omakase. I remember looking at a small potted ivy on the windowsill, the moonlight turning the leaves silver.

I had whispered Happy Birthday to the plant.

I told myself they were good people. Maisie had saved me from bullies once. Bennett had given me a path to a better education. I forced myself to be grateful. I suppressed the jealousy until it felt like a dull ache I could ignore.

The moon is in the sky, and I am on the ground. I never reached for it. And even when the light hit me, I knew it didn't belong to me.

As the weeks passed, Maisie grew darker. The girl with the loose blazer and the collarbones that looked like wings was gone.

Bennett stopped replying altogether.

I told him she was getting suspicious.

Dont mention her to me again, he texted back. Shes blind, Casey. Whats she going to do? Im moving on. I suggest you do the same.

My heart sank. I deleted the chat immediately.

By the second month of her blindness, Bennett had officially ghosted her.

Maisie knew. One afternoon, she threw her phone against the wall, shattering it into a dozen pieces.

"Hes not coming back, is he?" she whispered. "He never loved me. Now that Im broken, Im just a chore."

"Don't say that," I said, my voice steady with a lie. "Hes just busy. Hell be back for the holidays. He told me to tell you to take care of yourself."

She let out a harsh, cold laugh. "Liar."

"My sister saw his Instagram," Maisie said, her voice dropping to a dead flat tone. "Hes in the Maldives with some blonde. Hes done with us."

She looked like a wounded animal, curled up on the massive king-sized bed. She buried her face in the pillows, her shoulders shaking.

I kept lying. I told her the woman was just a friend, a business contact. I used my most honest, "good guy" voice to spin a web of comfort.

She didn't move. After a long silence, she uttered two words.

"Get out."

I left, closing the door softly. Downstairs, Margot was reading. She didn't look up.

"Shes taking it well, I assume?"

I nodded. Margot didn't show a flicker of sympathy for her sister. Instead, a small, dark smile touched her lips.

"I knew it would end this way. At least she wasn't too deep in. I can't believe she actually fell for a player like Bennett."

I felt a sudden need to defend himor maybe the version of him I needed to believe in. "Hes not a player. Hes just... overwhelmed."

Margot shrugged, glancing at her useless legs. "I was going to make him fall for me, you know. Just to show Maisie how pathetic he was. But the idiot wanted both of us. He wanted a competition. And look what it costmy legs and her eyes. A very bad investment."

She spoke about her own tragedy like a failed business merger. There was a cold, simmering rage beneath her words, directed at the ocean between her and the man who had caused this.

She looked at me then, her eyes narrowing behind her frames.

"You won't be a 'bad man,' will you, Casey? My sister is fragile now. She can't take another hit." Her voice was sweet, but her eyes were like a predators.

I felt a chill run down my spine. I shook my head, unable to find the words.

Summer storms in the Northeast are sudden and violent. Margot hated the rain, so she usually went to bed early. Around nine, I would have to carry her to bed.

Her legs were still too weak to support her weight. In the beginning, it was awkward. I wasn't the strongest guy, and she was tall. Id have to hook her arm around my neck, her chin digging into my shoulder, and lift with everything I had.

The first time I did it, she was stiff, her usual mask of politeness slipping into a look of pure disgust at our proximity.

"Im sorry," I muttered as I tucked her in. "I know this isn't ideal. We could hire a female nurse if"

"No," she snapped. "This is fine."

That night, she made me scrub the mud out of the foyer rug until 3 AM as punishment for "clumsiness."

I learned. I became a machine. I learned to anticipate her needsa pillow for her lower back, a glass of water the moment she cleared her throat.

Once, she sat with her lips pressed thin, looking pained. I realized she needed the restroom but was too proud to ask. I brought her the medical basin and said softly, "Ill empty it immediately. No one has to know."

She exploded. Her face turned a panicked shade of red. "What is wrong with you? Take me to the bathroom properly."

I was confused. I thought I was being helpful, minimizing the "shame" of being carried. But I did as she asked. When I put her back in bed, she looked at me with pure venom.

"Youll never get anything from me, Casey. Youre just the help. Remember that."

"I wasn't looking for a bonus, Margot," I said quietly.

Tonight, it was pouring again. I finished putting Margot to bed and went to check on Maisie.

Her room was empty.

The balcony door was wide open, the curtains whipping in the wind like ghosts. Rain was spraying onto the hardwood floors.

My heart hammered against my ribs. I ran to the railing, looking out into the darkness and the silver sheets of rain.

I grabbed a black umbrella and a slicker, making sure the front door was locked behind me.

The estate was on the edge of the woods, isolated and dark. The streetlights along the driveway flickered, casting long, eerie shadows.

I found her half a mile down the road.

She hadn't gone far. How could she? She was navigating by memory and the dull sensation of light against her clouded vision. She wasn't trying to escape; she was just trying to feel something other than the suffocating silence of her room.

She stood under a flickering streetlight, drenched. The orange glow hit the water on her face, making it look like she was melting. She looked small. Defeated.

I walked up to her and held the umbrella over her head. I had to stand on my tiptoes to keep it high enough.

"Youre not Bennett," she whispered, her voice raw. "Hes never coming. Because Im a freak now."

"Maisie, lets go back."

"I called him," she said, her voice shaking. "I heard a girl laughing in the background. He didn't even realize it was me at first."

She let out a sob that was swallowed by the thunder. "I thought we were it. I thought racing him that night... I thought it was a game we were playing together."

"Hes probably just out with friends," I lied, though the words tasted like ash. "The time difference, you know?"

She laughed, a jagged, ugly sound. "How are you dumber than I am?"

I didn't answer. I just gently took her sleeve and began to lead her back toward the house.

"When we get back, you need a hot shower," I said. "Ill dry your hair so you don't get a headache."

She was silent for a long time. Then: "Do you remember the track meet in senior year? I tripped during the 400-meter. You and Bennett both ran toward me."

I remembered. I had been terrified. Id reached out to ask if she was okay, if she needed the nurse.

But Bennett had gotten there first. Hed laughed and asked, "How are we supposed to win now, princess?"

Maisie had stood up, ignored my hand, and grinned at him. "Watch me win it anyway."

I had pulled my hand back and disappeared into the crowd.

We reached the front door just as the rain began to taper off. Neither of us said another word.

After that night, a strange truce formed. Margot didn't ask where Maisie had gone, and I didn't tell her. I kept my head down.

My real life was happening in the margins. I was a Sustainable Agriculture major. My dream was the Research Institute. I wanted to spend my life in a lab or a field, away from the toxic glitter of people like the Lins.

I needed the money for my futurefor a life where I didn't have to carry anyones secrets.

One afternoon, while pushing Margot through the garden, I found myself staring at the soil. It was rich, loamy. This would be perfect for potato cultivars, I thought. I was mentally drafting a paper on tissue culture when Margot snapped her fingers.

"Casey? Ive called your name three times."

"Sorry. I was thinking about my thesis."

She looked amused. "And what does someone like you study? Business? Hospitality?"

"Vegetable Science," I said.

Margot actually laughed. It wasn't a mean laugh, for once. It was genuine, bright, and musical. "Youre a nerd, aren't you? A little farm boy buried in a scholarship."

"I want to increase crop yields," I said, feeling a rare spark of pride. "I want to do something that actually matters."

She leaned back, her eyes softening behind her glasses. "I didn't think people like you existed anymore. So earnest."

"Casey! Get up here!" Maisies voice drifted from the second-floor window. "I want you to read to me!"

Ever since the rainstorm, Maisie couldn't go ten minutes without calling for me if she knew I was with Margot.

I started to head inside, but Margot grabbed my wrist. The warmth of her hand was startling.

"Casey," she said, her voice dropping the playfulness. "Don't get ideas just because Maisie is clinging to you. Bennett was out of her league, but you... youre not even in the game. Don't let her convince you otherwise."

The invisible wall slammed back into place. My dream, my hard workto her, it was all just a quaint hobby for the help.

"I know my place, Margot," I said, my voice cold.

I pushed her inside and headed upstairs. Maisie was waiting, holding a lamp base, banging it against the railing like a drum.

"Read to me! You left off in the middle of The Little Prince!"

"Give him back, Maisie!" Margot shouted from downstairs.

I felt like a chew toy being pulled between two bored predators. I went up to Maisie, but I could feel Margots eyes on my back the whole way up.

Five months in, the call came from my mother.

They found a kidney for my father. But the donor's family wanted a "gratitude gift"a hundred thousand dollars under the table to cover their own debts. Plus the surgery, the recovery... we needed a hundred and thirty thousand.

My mother was hysterical. "I asked Bennetts father. Hes lending us thirty. I scraped together ten from the aunts. But were still sixty short. Casey, please. You work for those wealthy girls. Ask them. Beg them. Your father is running out of time."

I sat on the bathroom floor, the phone pressed to my ear, tears blurring my vision. How could I ask them? To them, sixty thousand was a handbag. To me, it was my fathers life.

I checked my savings. I had thirty thousand from my salary. I just needed thirty more.

I walked into the living room, my heart in my throat. I approached Margot first.

"I... I was wondering if I could get an advance on my salary. For a few months. My father..."

Margot didn't even let me finish. She didn't look up from her tablet. "The contract says monthly payments, Casey. No advances. Its a professional boundary."

"But it's an emergency. He needs a transplant."

She finally looked at me, her eyes icy. "Thats a very creative story. Is this the part where the loyal servant reveals his true colors? Youre just here for the payout, aren't you?"

I swallowed my sob and turned to Maisie, who was sitting nearby. I grabbed her hand. "Maisie, please. Ive done everything for you. I just need a loan. Ill work it off for free for a year."

Maisie wrenched her hand away as if Id burned her. "So all that 'kindness' was just a setup for this? You were just waiting for the right moment to hit us up for cash?"

I stood there, paralyzed. I did my job that night. I carried Margot to bed. I dried Maisies hair. We didn't speak.

I took a months leave.

I sold my thesis. I had a paper that was almost ready for a major journal, a breakthrough in potato genetics. My advisor said it was my ticket to a Ph.D. I sold the data and the credit to a rich grad student who needed a win.

It wasn't enough.

I begged. I knelt in front of the donor's family. I gave them my ID, my student records, my soul. I promised them every cent I would ever earn.

I still needed five thousand for the hospital fees.

I walked down a dark alley in the city and dialed a number scrawled on the back of a bathroom stall.

"I heard you pay for blood and plasma. Does the offer still stand for... more?"