My Mom Threw My Acceptance Letter Away For My Stepsister Chapter 08
I finally escaped back to my dorm. Unfortunately, it cost me my new number.
The single room Westbrook assigned me was better than I’d imagined.
I came out of the shower to my phone vibrating nonstop.
Annoyance flickered in my chest.
All three of them. Ethan’s messages dominated the screen.
[Natalie, I’ve been thinking all day. I want to say I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how much I’d hurt you. Please give me a chance to make it right.]
[We haven’t left Westbrook yet. Let’s talk tomorrow. Please. I’m begging you.]
The rest was more groveling. Apologies.
I didn’t want to read them.
Would they have mattered? A single cupcake used to fix the old Natalie. But the new Natalie? Not a chance.
Next was Mom.
[Natalie, I think I really messed up. When Robert and Sophie moved in ten years ago, all I thought about was protecting Robert’s fragile ego. So I poured everything into Sophie.]
[I forgot you were the same age. I kept telling myself you had me,
—
Ethan, Gavin. You were the Whitman princess. You didn’t need anything. Sophie needed more. But now I’m adding it up, and I was so wrong.]
[All these years, we circled around Sophie. And behind you? There was no one. I’m sorry, Natalie. I’m so sorry.]
I stared blankly for two seconds.
Then I deleted the thread. Crocodile tears. Disgusting.
And finally, Gavin.
[Natalie, The Cove was never a lie. I built it for you. Can you forgive me?]
I rolled my eyes so hard it hurt.
If I could stomach reading Mom and Ethan’s messages, Gavin’s were pure garbage. Reading them felt like punishment.
A bitter laugh.
They all acted like one sorry could wipe the slate clean.
…
But the next day, I went to the meeting spot Ethan named.
Not for them. Just to end this cleanly. So they’d stop invading my life.
They were already there, waiting, anxious.
“Natalie.”
I sat across from them, same cracked secondhand phone in my hand.
—
Fifty thousand dollars in my account and I still wasn’t wasting a dime.
Mom saw it.
Guilt drowned her eyes.
How had she never noticed before? Her real daughter, the true Whitman child, using a broken phone.
And Sophie? The girl with no blood ties to her? Dripping in luxury. Living like a queen. Why hadn’t she seen it?
She dug her nails into her palms, eyes bloodshot. Shame threatened to swallow her whole.
The same realization was carving its way through Ethan.
He dropped his gaze, hiding the red in his eyes. His chest felt hollow.
I didn’t care what they felt.
I wanted this over. “Say what you came to say. Then we’re done.”
All three flinched. Ethan spoke first. He slid a bank card across the table. Couldn’t look me in the eye.
“Five million dollars. For your four years of college. I’m sorry, Natalie.”
I didn’t pick it up.
Mom stood and pressed it into my palm, her fingers trembling. “If it’s not enough, tell me. This is just… something to make things right.”
“Every month, I’ll have Ethan deposit ten thousand into your account.”
I stared at the check in my hand. “Wow. That much.”
—
“A week ago, I couldn’t even afford a taxi. Two hours on the bus, and I came home to find you all buried in shopping bags. For Sophie.”
Their faces went white.
I laughed coldly, tore the check in half, and dropped it in the trash.
Just like they’d trashed my acceptance letter.
“I don’t need it. I’m not a waste of space like Sophie. I can earn my own money. I can stand on my own two feet.”
I got up. Before I walked away, I left them with one last line. “Don’t contact me again. I’m begging you.”
Then I vanished from their sight.
They sat motionless. Mom’s sobs broke the silence.
Behind me, no one called my name.
Only Mom’s sobs broke the silence.
…
We didn’t speak again.
I heard later that Mom went home and divorced Robert.
She changed Sophie Whitman back to Sophie Hayes.
Cut off all contact.
I didn’t care.
Because four years later, I was standing in an international terminal,
—
about to board a plane for my study abroad program.
My open-sky life was just beginning.