Chapter 2

2

David's face wore a smug, triumphant smile. He looked like he had been drinking; his body swayed as he held a wooden switch.

"I finally have a son. A son is a treasure. You? You're just a waste of money. Why didn't you just die at birth?"

I stood there, frozen.

Even at four, I knew what death meant.

Seeing me daze off, my father's switch came down hard on my back.

"What are you looking at? Get back to work and sweep the yard, you useless girl!"

The pain was sharp. Soon, my arms were covered in red welts.

I bit my lip and kept sweeping.

As my brother grew, he was treated like a king. He ate the best food and had the best toys.

Meanwhile, I was forced to go into the woods with my mother to gather herbs or work in the fields. I did all the housework.

Whenever my father got drunk, he would hit me. He would mutter that girls shouldn't read and that they were just livestock for the family.

When I finished middle school, my grades were good enough for a top-tier prep school. But they refused to let me go.

That night, they tied me to a chair in the kitchen.

I sobbed and begged. I even promised to sign a loan to pay them back for the tuition later.

My father wouldn't hear it.

"If I go to school and get a good job, I'll give you all the money! Please, just let me go!"

"Shut up! Why would a girl need high school? If you leave, who's going to do the chores? You want Grant to do them?"

My mother chimed in from the corner. "Look at yourself in the mirror. You don't deserve an education."

"Please, I'm begging you..."

Before I could finish, my father kicked the chair over. My hair got caught in the wooden frame, and a patch was ripped clean from my scalp as I hit the floor.

The pain was so intense I couldn't even scream.

"It's decided. You're not going!"

David looked at me with disgust and tore my acceptance letter into tiny pieces.

Looking at the scraps on the floor, I felt a deep sense of despair.

They could have done the chores themselves. I could have had a future.

But I was a girl. That was my original sin.

The screen flickered, and the scene changed.

The words "Miller Textile Mill" appeared on the screen.

I was standing at the gates, wearing a thin, tattered coat. I looked skeletal and exhausted.

By then, I had been forced to work at the mill in the city. Between grueling three-shift rotations, I spent every spare second studying.

Books weren't cheap. I ate nothing but scraps just to save enough money for textbooks.

Knowledge was the only way out of that hell.

The memory shifted to Lydia showing up at the mill.

She grabbed me by the hair and dragged me toward the exit.

"You ungrateful brat! Are you spending your wages on something else? Your brother needs money for his private tutors!"

She slapped me hard across the face.

I was so frail I couldn't resist. I fell to the ground, and my books spilled out of my bag.

I remember the feeling of the cold asphalt scraping my cheek.

That month, the factory had delayed our pay due to a financial issue.

Lydia saw the money hadn't hit her account and came looking for blood the next day.

When she saw the books on the ground, she lost her mind.

"You have money for this trash? I don't even buy a piece of meat so your brother can have the best, and you buy books?"

She acted like a rabid animal, tearing my books to shreds.

My coworkers wanted to help, but they were intimidated by her sheer feral rage.

All I could think about was her saying she didn't buy meat.

I ate only two small meals a day so I could study. Eggs were a luxury I couldn't afford.

"I saved my own food money for those," I said, trembling as I stood up.

Lydia pushed me down again. "If you can save money, you should send it home! Your brother is going to a top high school in the city. Do you know how much that costs?"

The tuition for that school wasn't that high unless the student didn't have the grades to get in.

My heart went cold.

The school I earned my way into was the one they were buying his way into.

That day, she took every cent I had.

She looked at me with pure hatred as she left. "Since you're so good at starving, keep doing it. All your money belongs to your brother now."

To survive, I started working side jobs.

I delivered food, worked as a barista, washed dishes, and hauled crates.

Once, there was a music festival nearby that needed laborers to move steel pipes.

I was in such a rush to finish that I tripped while carrying a heavy load.