Chapter 3

3

The day I moved out, I took nothing but my old clothes and a backpack.

I didn't take a cent of the Vance money. I left the credit cards my father had given me on the marble counter. I hadn't touched them.

I found a tiny studio apartment in the Southside for fifteen hundred a month.

I went back to the neighborhood I knew, getting a job as a sales associate at a local boutique. It paid thirty-five hundred a month.

The life was grueling, but I felt at peace.

I thought I had cut ties with the Vances for good. But Trixie wasn't going to let me leave that easily.

She was smarter than she looked. On the surface, she played the role of the "heartbroken sister."

Whenever people in their social circle asked about me, she would get misty-eyed. "Wren just misunderstood me. I don't blame her, but I worry. Life out there must be so hard for her."

"I begged Dad to bring her home, but she refused," she would sigh.

"I just wanted us to be real sisters."

Because of her act, everyone thought Trixie was a saint. I was branded as the ungrateful, bitter, and unstable sister who didn't know how good she had it.

But behind the scenes, she was even nastier.

She tracked down my apartment in the Southside. She took photos of the crumbling building and posted them to her private social media stories.

The caption read: "It breaks my heart to see my sister living like this."

The photo of the trash-lined street was juxtaposed against a selfie of her in her mansion, looking flawless.

The comments were brutal:

"Some people just don't have class. She belongs in the gutter."

"Trixie is too kind. Her sister is a lost cause."

"You can take the girl out of the slums, but you can't take the slums out of the girl."

I saw the messages.

I wasn't angry, and I wasn't surprised. I knew Trixie's playbook. She never attacked directly; she used "concern" to manipulate the narrative and "kindness" to hide her venom.

I simply screenshotted everything.

I kept them filed away. I knew they'd be useful one day.