My Twin Sister Stole My College Admission Chapter 04
“What the hell is this?”
My eyes went wide, and my chest constricted into a tight knot.
Chloe pried it open. “Are you serious? A bunch of torn-up honor certificates and academic medals? Elena, you didn’t seriously collect this garbage hoping you could expose me in the family group chat later, did you?”
“Chloe! Give that back to me! You think everyone is as manipulative and pathetic as you?!”
She pulled a metallic Zippo lighter out of her pocket, flicking the flame to life.
“I don’t care what your excuse is. I can’t let this evidence hang around.”
She was literally going to burn them right in front of me!
“Give it back!” I lunged forward with everything I had, desperate to protect the only emotional anchor that had kept me sane through years of psychological abuse…
“Ah!”
Chloe deliberately threw herself backward, crashing heavily onto the hardwood floor. Her piercing, theatrical shriek of agony instantly brought my parents and brother sprinting into the room.
“Chloe!”
Seeing the scene, my brother Logan lost his mind. He rushed forward, carefully hoisting Chloe into his arms, and without asking a single question, swung his palm and delivered a brutal, echoing slap right across my face.
“Elena! How dare you violently put your hands on her?!”
My head snapped to the side, staring blankly at the floor as a scorching, throbbing pain bloomed across my cheek.
“I… didn’t touch her.”
But he refused to listen to a single word. He only cared about comforting Chloe. “Sweetie, what happened? Tell Logan.”
She sobbed hysterically, burying her face in his chest as she hurled her calculated accusations.
“I just saw that Elena had a metal box full of certificates proving she was valedictorian. I literally just wanted to look at them, but she snapped, lost her mind, and violently shoved me to the ground…”
My mom knelt down, picking up the scattered contents of the metal box from the floor.
As she realized what they were, her face turned dangerously dark.
“Elena, what is your sick obsession with hoarding these old papers? Are you just waiting for the perfect moment to humiliate your sister in front of the entire family?!”
I let out a sharp, cynical laugh.
Humiliate?
I saved the very first certificate back when I was in elementary school. How on earth could I have predicted what you monsters would do today?
It was a scenario so fundamentally absurd, yet they completely, unquestioningly bought into their own twisted narrative about me.
Hearing my mom’s words, Logan snatched the box away from her, glaring at me with eyes full of pure hatred.
“You possess a truly venomous, malicious soul.”
He clicked his lighter open. Right before my trembling, horrified eyes, he dropped the open flame onto the fragile papers!
“No!”
“Don’t burn them! Stop!”
He violently shoved me away with his forearm. The physical evidence of my hard work, the only emotional anchors I had preserved for over a decade, were reduced to a pile of black ash in a matter of seconds.
He looked down at me, his eyes entirely devoid of warmth.
“Elena, drop the pathetic schemes. I told you before, your entire existence is a debt you owe to Chloe!”
The four of them swept out of the room. I sat frozen on the floor, staring blankly at the pile of smoldering grey ash.
Slowly, I began scooping the ashes back into the metal box with my bare hands, ignoring the blistering heat that turned my fingertips bright red.
A wave of pure, unadulterated hatred and disgust rushed through my veins.
Originally, I had planned to expose the truth on the day college started and tell them I was never going to Kingston. But now…
Go ahead.
Take the entire extended family with you. Flaunt it to the absolute max.
I can’t wait to see how you pathetic fools close the curtains when the show blows up in your faces.
