To my surprise, the moment Kathleen heard this, her eyes went red.

As if she'd just steeled herself for some great sacrifice, she looked at Elliot with the most reluctant expression:

"Elliot, I've decided not to go abroad with you after all. Our family company's been struggling lately, and we can only afford to send one person overseas. My sister didn't test well, so she needs this chance to polish her credentials more than I do..."

"And about the celebration banquet, if my sister doesn't want one, then I won't have one either. Every little bit we save helps the family!"

Her thoughtfulness and consideration earned her instant looks of approval from Elliot and my parents.

Only in Elliot's eyes there was also obvious heartache.

"Then why isn't she the one cutting costs? She's the one booking the best hotel to treat the entire faculty to dinner! I'd bet it's all to snatch the spot abroad away from you!"

He grabbed Kathleen's hand and marched up to me, demanding:

"You're always targeting Kathleen like this. Doesn't your conscience hurt?"

The word always baffled me:

"Didn't I just say I'd let her go abroad? I even told Mom and Dad to throw her a separate banquet. What more do you want?"

Elliot stared at me for a long moment before saying coldly:

"Thanks to you, everyone now knows Kathleen is the Gilberts' adopted daughter. If we only throw a banquet for her and not for you, isn't that just another way to make people laugh at her?"

My parents quickly asked me what was going on.

After all, we'd always told outsiders that Kathleen was my real sister.

I shook my head, completely at a loss:

"How would I know why?"

Right then Kathleen plopped down on the couch, buried her face between her knees, and burst into loud sobs.

"Dad, Mom, if my sister isn't having one, then I won't either!"

Elliot's heart ached for her, and he rushed to soothe her in a gentle voice.

When nothing he said could calm her, he turned and demanded coldly of me:

"Trudy, why do you always use your status as the precious Gilbert heiress to bully your own adopted sister?"

Kathleen hurriedly tugged at his arm:

"Elliot, you promised me you wouldn't say anything about my sister!"

Elliot forced himself silent.

For all the world like someone who'd been bullied by me but didn't dare say so.

My parents had always doted on Kathleen, and they immediately ordered him to explain what had happened.

But he only left one parting line as he pulled Kathleen away.

"Kathleen won't let me say it, so I won't! Anyway, as long as Kathleen comes abroad with me, no one will be able to bully her!"

It was an exquisitely crafted line.

It left far too much room for people's imagination.

My father pulled a long face and interrogated me.

"Trudy, why did you tell people Kathleen was the adopted daughter? Why did you bully her?"

"Dad, I didn't..."

My father slammed the table, his voice cold as ice:

"Elliot always sides with what's right, not with who's family. If you hadn't gone too far, he never would have said something that harsh!"

"You'd better come clean yourself!"

A bitter laugh escaped me, and with it, tears.

Ever since junior year, when Elliot fell through the ice and I pulled him out, he'd grown noticeably distant from me.

Instead, the way he looked at Kathleen, who'd fallen into the water that same time, had changed entirely.

I'd just assumed the two of them shared a bond from the shared ordeal, and thought nothing of it.

Later, one morning Kathleen was dragging her feet too long, and I was in a hurry to get to school, so I had the driver take me first.

Somehow a rumor sprang up that I'd deliberately refused to let the driver give Kathleen a ride.

From then on Elliot took up the role of her devoted protector, picking her up and dropping her off morning and night.

When I asked him why he was suddenly so good to Kathleen, why he'd stopped picking me up, his explanation at the time was:

"Trudy, Kathleen is your adopted sister after all. If outsiders found out you two don't get along, it's the Gilbert name that gets dragged through the mud."

"Me helping you look after her is for your own good."

Kathleen had just transferred to his school, and since they were on the same route, going together worked out nicely. It saved him the detour of picking me up.

Naive as I'd always been, busy throwing everything I had into the Ivy Honors Program, I still hadn't paid it any mind.

I'd even thought he was being considerate toward me.

It wasn't until today, filling out the study-abroad application form, that I finally understood.

Somewhere along the way, without my noticing, his every thought, his every glance, had become only Kathleen.

"Dad, he likes Kathleen, and he wants to call off our engagement."

When he realized it was all a misunderstanding, my father gave me a long, searching look.

"Trudy, if Elliot really likes Kathleen more now, would you truly be willing to step aside and let them be?"

"Yes!"

I nodded without a second's hesitation.

Kathleen might have been our adopted sister, but ever since she came to our family at eight years old, I'd always treated her like my own blood.

To me, family meant more than any man.

I didn't want the two of us turning on each other over some boy.

And I didn't want a childhood bond, the one we'd grown up with, to end in something ugly.

My father took me to the Delgado home.

The moment Kathleen saw me and my father, she turned and went straight to the kitchen to make tea.

She slid open the cabinet with practiced ease, pulled out the cups and the tea leaves. One look told you this wasn't her first time here.

For some reason, I read it in the way she moved, like she was staking her claim as the lady of the house.

I pushed the thought down and spoke to Elliot plainly, of my own accord.

"If you like Kathleen, you can just say so to my face. There's no need to go in circles, pulling tricks to make me back out. After all, I scored a perfect SAT—"

The Ivy League was the better choice for me.

The roar of a car engine outside swallowed that last sentence whole.

"Elliot, come out and help carry the luggage!"

It was Elliot's parents, back from their trip.

He and my father stood and went out to greet them.

I got up to go too, but Kathleen blocked me with the tea tray in her hands.

"Sis, I shouldn't have thrown a fit and gotten difficult earlier. Don't hold it against me, okay?"

I looked at the scalding tea, steam still curling off it, and had no intention of taking it.

But Kathleen insisted on pressing it into my hands.

I only stepped back, just one step, and she went stumbling backward too.

A whole cup of boiling tea spilled across the back of her hand.

"Ah!"

"Sis, why did you push me?"

When Elliot and my father came in carrying the suitcases, this was the scene they walked into.

Elliot dropped the luggage on the spot and rushed in, his eyes gone red.

He cradled the reddened back of Kathleen's hand with such care, his voice trembling.

"Kathleen, does it hurt? I'll take you to the hospital!"

Kathleen spoke up for me through her tears.

"It's fine, it doesn't hurt. I didn't hold it steady myself... it's not Sis's fault..."

Elliot's face went dark as he shouted at me.

"Trudy! Will this ever end? Why would you push her on purpose?"

"I didn't!"

The denial came out of me on instinct.

But he didn't believe it.

He only looked at me, deeply disappointed.

"Kathleen's the one who can't stand pain. How could she possibly pour tea that hot all over her own hand?"

"And besides, your father and I both heard her apologize to you with our own ears, and saw you push her with our own eyes!"

I turned to my father, at a loss, only to find his face even darker than Elliot's.

Clearly, he too believed he hadn't seen wrong.

Kathleen cried harder, but in the eyes she fixed on me there was, beneath the fear, a flicker of triumph.

It was only in that moment that I knew for certain. Elliot's sudden turn against me, all of it, was Kathleen's doing!

I pointed at the security camera and said flatly,

"Then check the footage and see whether I pushed her or not!"

But Elliot let out a scornful laugh.

"Kathleen's hurt this badly and you still have it in you to go checking cameras? If you ask me, you're just stalling on purpose, dragging it out so she suffers, so she ends up sick worse than last time!"

My father froze.

"What last time?"

Kathleen sobbed and begged Elliot not to speak, so he truly fell silent.

But all at once I remembered the last time Elliot had fallen through the ice and ended up in the hospital. Back then, she'd also been hospitalized with pneumonia after falling into the water.

Could it be that everything was connected to that?

Before I could think it through, my mother heard the commotion and came over.

The moment she saw the blisters already rising on the back of Kathleen's hand, she wanted to rush her to the hospital.

Elliot, though, scooped Kathleen up sideways into his arms and hurried out.

My mother, not knowing the whole story, pulled me along into Elliot's car too.

On the way, her face was tight as she asked me,

“Trudy, what happened to Kathleen's hand?”

Elliot's hands clenched around the steering wheel, his voice ice-cold.

“She was jealous that I like Kathleen, jealous that Kathleen scored better than her and gets to go abroad with me, so she dumped a whole cup of hot tea over Kathleen's hand!”

My mother froze on the spot.

“That can't be……”

The next second, a sharp slap landed across my face.

My father shook out his stinging hand and looked at me, his eyes full of disappointment.

“Trudy Gilbert, this is what you meant by not bullying your sister!”

“If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I'd never have known how vicious you are!”

“Stealing a man, and stooping to something this low to do it!”

I swallowed the mouthful of rust and wanted to defend myself, but my mother jabbed me in the side and murmured under her breath,

“Trudy, your father's furious right now. Don't dig in your heels against him!”

Tears welled in my eyes. I didn't want to dig in either.

But then I caught the smug little glance Kathleen shot my way, and the wronged feeling broke free, past holding back.

“She spilled the tea on her own hand! If you don't believe me, go back and check the surveillance!”

Elliot suddenly slammed on the brakes and whipped around to glare at me.

“Are you only this brazen because you knew that camera at my place is broken?”

I froze in an instant.

The car drove on.

Inside, not one person spoke.

The pressure had dropped to its lowest point.

All that remained was Kathleen's desperately stifled crying.

“Sister, I'm sorry. If you want to go abroad with Elliot, then go. Someone has to stay home to keep Mom and Dad company……”

She wept as she accused me of being cruel.

And the whole car believed her.

By the time we reached the hospital, several large blisters had risen on the back of Kathleen's hand.

Even the doctor couldn't help scolding.

“How did it get this bad? It might even scar……”

My parents and Elliot were red around the eyes with heartache.

The way they looked at me was cold as frost.

“Trudy, you've let your parents down too much!”

“Forget about going abroad! We'll be sending Kathleen instead!”

“And apologize to your sister!”

I nodded in silence.

But I refused to apologize.

My parents, beyond disappointed, turned to Elliot and pressed him for confirmation.

“Elliot, do you truly love Kathleen?”

Elliot took Kathleen's unhurt left hand, lacing his fingers tight through hers.

“Yes, sir, ma'am. I know I was foolish before and made a verbal betrothal with Trudy, but that was all childish ignorance. I'm an adult now, and I know perfectly well that the one I truly love is Kathleen!”

My parents still didn't look at me. Instead they turned to Elliot's parents, who had just arrived, and got down to the real business.

“Mr. Delgado, three days from now I'd like to hold a college celebration banquet for Kathleen and Elliot together. It'll be their engagement party as well.”

This was my parents' way of punishing me, deliberately setting the celebration banquet and engagement party for three days out.

Tears kept welling up with the unfairness of it, but I stubbornly refused to let them fall.

It was the first time Elliot had seen me like this, and he couldn't help softening.

“As long as you don't cause a scene that day, I don't mind the three of us holding the celebration banquet together.”

I sniffed and turned him down flat.

Only then did Elliot's parents catch on. Their son had switched the woman he was engaging.:

“Elliot, weren't you supposed to get engaged to Trudy?”

Rejected, Elliot's face twisted, ugly with humiliation.

He pulled in a deep breath and said, loud enough for everyone to hear,:

“How could I ever marry a woman as vicious as her?”