The SATs were over, and our homeroom teacher had put together a graduation trip for the whole class.

While the roster was being drawn up, Nicholas Stephens casually crossed out my name.

"Clara Henson's retaking the SATs to get into the top university. She doesn't get to go on the trip."

A snicker came from behind me.

"Her? Get into the top university?"

"With her scores, she couldn't get in even if she retook it ten times."

My sister shot the boy a glare and took my hand with a smile.

"Getting into the top university isn't hard, Clara."

"Spend a little less energy on Nicholas and you'll definitely make it."

One of them had a photographic memory, a true genius. The other had skipped three grades, a child prodigy.

How could either of them understand what it was like to be an ordinary person like me?

That even giving it everything I had, I still couldn't keep pace with them.

I clutched the trip plan booklet I'd put together and lowered my head with a small smile.

"I'm not retaking it. My scores are enough to get me into an ordinary teaching college."

"For someone like me, becoming a teacher would be plenty."

Rising above everyone, making a name for themselves, that was their dream.

An ordinary person like me.

I only wanted to live out my life the way I liked, steady and at peace.

——

Hearing that, Nicholas knit his brows.

"Clara, how can you have so little ambition?"

"So what if you failed once? You've got me and Pat Henson to tutor you. What is there to worry about?"

Going by my original scores, getting into a solid, well-regarded state school wouldn't have been a problem.

But when they split us into tracks junior year, Nicholas insisted the humanities were for people going nowhere and forced me into the science track.

My grades nosedived because of it.

Landing this score at all was already me outperforming myself.

Seeing me lower my head and say nothing, Nicholas snatched the booklet out of my hands.

He gave it one glance, then ripped it to shreds.

"Nothing in your head but having fun. No wonder you can't get into a good school."

"Clara, do you really plan to waste your whole life like this?"

Irritated, he scribbled over my name twice more.

"If you can't get into the top university, then don't count on being with me."

"I can accept a girlfriend who isn't smart enough, but I can't accept some deadweight in my life who has no drive to better herself!"

The Nicholas of before had never talked to me like this.

He used to run wild with me on the hillsides.

He used to tell me how amazing I was, able to name every plant there was.

But once we got to the city, once he met Pat, another genius.

His disdain for me could no longer be hidden.

I didn't respond to Nicholas's anger, and I didn't grovel to soothe his temper the way I once would have.

I bent down and carefully taped the torn booklet back together, piece by piece.

My doing that only made him angrier.

His hand hung in the air for a long moment.

In the end he grabbed Pat and left without a backward glance.

At dinner that night, the two of them happened to sit right across from me again.

Nicholas ordered the waiter to swap out the plain broth pot in front of him, his face cold as he shot me a look.

"Someone who's given up on her own life has no right to eat at the same table as me."

Pat, sitting beside him, kicked him under the table.

She put a fresh helping of food onto my plate.

"Clara, don't listen to Nicholas talk nonsense. He's just got that awful temper of his."

"His mouth's a little vicious, but his heart isn't bad. Eat this one instead, it's not spicy."

I was the one who'd grown up alongside Nicholas.

Yet Pat seemed to understand him better than I did.

I took a bite of the food Pat had given me and my whole face flushed red, choking on the chili peppers hidden inside.

Nicholas kept that same stony face, yet he went ahead and asked the waiter for a glass of mango juice.

"Clara, how can you be this useless? You can't even manage to eat properly."

"A dimwit like you—what would you ever do without me?"

A genius who never forgot a single thing, and yet he'd forgotten I was allergic to mango.

But just a moment ago, he'd carefully picked every last sprig of cilantro out of Pat's food.

I coughed so hard my eyes started to water.

I gulped down a big mouthful of water and ignored the out Nicholas was offering me.

He froze for a second.

Then his face darkened, and he set the mango juice down hard in front of Pat.

The dinner broke up on a sour note.

A few classmates picked up on the tension and suggested we all go sing karaoke.

Nicholas draped Pat's coat over her shoulders and spoke first.

"No thanks. We're heading back to rest."

"Pat says staying up late damages the brain, so she makes a point of going to sleep before ten."

Because of that habit of hers.

For three years of high school, I never watched TV again, never listened to a single song.

Even when I wanted to review or do homework, I had to carry a stool out into the hallway.

Now I was finally free, and I wanted to let loose for once.

"Nicholas, you two go on ahead."

"I'm going to sing."

Nicholas was displeased again.

"Clara, can't you be a little more sensible?"

"Your brain was never a match for Pat's to begin with. Are you only happy if you turn yourself into a complete idiot?"

It was just like when he changed my college applications without asking me.

Nicholas always said it was for my own good, but he never once asked what I actually wanted.

I wanted to sing. I wanted to go to the teaching college.

I wanted to decide for myself the path I'd really walk one day.

My pushing back, again and again, drove Nicholas to the edge.

He shot me a vicious glare, took Pat by the hand, and got in the car.

I lowered my head and watched the moonlight stretch my shadow into one long, thin line.

The truth was, Nicholas liked staying up late too.

Back then he used to lie out on the grass with me, watching the stars, listening to the summer cicadas.

But there were no stars in the city.

Only Pat, who had to go to bed early.

Nicholas, who never gave an inch on anything, decided to respect Pat's habit.

Three years of high school. A thousand-some nights.

He compromised for Pat more than a thousand times.

And now he wouldn't turn back for me even once.

By the time the singing was over, it was already midnight.

The other classmates all had family coming to pick them up.

I was the only one who took a cab home alone.

The door had been bolted from the inside.

I sent a few messages in the group chat. No one answered.

I was still hesitating over whether to call them when I heard Pat's voice inside.

"Nicholas, are you really going to lock Clara out?"

"This old neighborhood isn't safe, and she doesn't have money for a hotel. Isn't that dangerous?"

Nicholas's voice came through, mixed with the sound of his video game.

"I'm just teaching her a lesson. We'll see if she still dares to ignore what I say."

"Nicholas is right. That Clara was spoiled rotten by her grandmother, picked up a whole set of bad habits out in the country. She needs a good lesson."

That was Dad's voice.

"Forget it, don't waste your breath on her."

"It's not every day our family produces two kids headed to the top university. Let's think about how to celebrate instead."

That was Mom.

Not one of them was asleep.

And not one of them was willing to open the door for me.

Because of Nicholas, I'd gone all three years of high school without a single friend.

So now, locked out, I had nowhere to go.

From the bottom of the building came the cursing of some drunk.

I didn't dare wander off, so I sat on the stairwell steps all night.

The light overhead was old and broken, flickering on and off.

Like the stars back home.

I pulled my coat tighter around me, and somehow I fell asleep.

Not until morning, when Nicholas kicked me awake.

"Clara, did you really sleep out here all night? I figured you'd crashed at a classmate's place."

"How can one person be this dense? If you couldn't get in, why didn't you just call me?"

"I did. You were too busy playing games with Pat to pick up."

Nicholas paused, then frowned and reached down to haul me up.

My legs had gone numb. I couldn't stand.

I pitched straight into his arms.

His body went stiff, the tips of his ears flushing red.

His expression had only just softened when Pat's voice drifted out from inside.

"Sis, you're back. Come in and eat."

"Mom just boiled some shrimp."

The second he heard that, Nicholas shoved me away and hurried back to Pat's side.

"The bowls are too hot. Leave them, I've got it. You just sit and eat."

Five people, four stools.

In this house, it seemed there had never been a place for me.

Mom froze for a moment, then gave an awkward excuse.

"You never eat on time anyway. We're used to it."

It wasn't that I didn't eat on time. It was that Nicholas and the others finished their homework so fast.

By the time I'd worked through the last big problem, all that was left on the table were cold scraps and a pile of dishes to wash.

Nicholas pulled out the stool for Pat, then set the whole plate of shrimp down in front of me.

"You've got nothing better to do, so go help Pat peel these in the kitchen."

"People with bad grades should at least be good with their hands. Handy for waiting tables at a restaurant someday."

Pat let out a giggle.

"Nicholas, don't be mean. My sister isn't as useless as you make her sound."

"Her math is terrible, sure, but she could still manage as a cashier. Stop bossing her around all the time."

Nicholas didn't even look up.

"No need to feel sorry for her. She's used to all this from her days out in the country. She's not that delicate."

The country was hard. Money was tight, and Grandma was getting old.

I'd been helping with the laundry and the cooking since I was very small.

The stove was too high. I couldn't reach.

Every time smoke rose from a kitchen fire in our house, Nicholas, who lived at the east end of the village, would carry a stool over to help me.

He never tired of telling me the same thing.

"You've got me. What's there to be scared of?"

"I'd never let you go hungry."

Later, Grandma passed away.

Nicholas came with me all the way from the country to the city, and moved into my family's home.

We were closer now, physically, than we'd ever been.

Yet our hearts seemed to drift further and further apart.

A whole night in the cold draft of the stairwell had left my head swimming.

I had no appetite.

Back in my room, I pulled the blanket over my head.

Mom sighed the way you sigh at something you've given up on.

"This child. Throwing another tantrum."

"Same parents, and yet the gap between her and Pat is this wide. How?"

"Sometimes I want to run a DNA test, just to see if they swapped the babies on us back then."

Dad sighed along with her.

"Let her be."

"If she won't rise to it, what can we do?"

"We've got Nicholas and Pat, two children who actually care about us. That's enough."

Pat had grown up at our parents' side, given the best education the city had to offer.

But as far back as I could remember,

the only things beside me were endless fields and my illiterate grandmother.

How could a girl like me ever measure up to Pat, who'd been raised in love?

My head throbbed, foggy and miserable.

I drifted off into a daze.

When I opened my eyes again, the house was pitch dark.

My whole body burned like a furnace.

Out of habit, I called Nicholas's name. No answer.

I texted him. No reply.