Blank Out of Spite

After the college entrance exam ended, my younger sister, who had been my only family for seven years, told me calmly, "I left the whole thing blank." I froze and could not get a single word out. A look of vengeful satisfaction crossed her face as she went on, "Jett Sullivan and I never broke up either. I left it blank for him. His grades are awful, so there's no way he's getting into a good college. I promised him we'd spend all four years just having fun." Her words cut straight through me, yet she did not seem to think she had done anything wrong. She met my eyes openly and coldly. "The exam's over now anyway. If you're fine with me dating Jett, I'll still call you my brother. If not, we cut ties for good." She glanced at my trembling hands and paused. "If you still want me as your sister, fine. Give Jett every paycheck you've earned all these years. Think of it as a gift to him." Chapter 1 Even then, I could not shake the feeling that I was dreaming. She had left the whole thing blank? She had never broken up with Jett Sullivan, and she was planning to spend four years having fun with him? Hailey Donahue watched me coldly, one corner of her mouth curling into a smile. "Ever since I was a kid, you've controlled everything I do. No dating, no fun. You made me grind through practice tests and memorize textbooks. You treated me like your puppet. "Leaving the test blank is how I wreck the path you paved for me. I want you to know that your need to control me means absolutely nothing to me!" It felt like someone had slapped me hard across the face. My ears rang, and I could not stop shaking. Control? She actually thought I had been controlling her? Seven years ago, our parents died in a car accident. Hailey was only ten that year, and I was 17. To ensure that she could stay in school, I dropped out and started working. I wore clothes that went for a few bucks so I could buy her the best study guides. I could not bring myself to order takeout, yet I gritted my teeth and signed her up for the most expensive tutoring programs. For years, I scrimped and saved. Every dollar, every hour, and every ounce of effort I had went into her future. Yet now she stood in front of me and casually told me that all of it was control? "Hailey." My voice shook so badly it barely sounded like mine. "That's the college entrance exam! Your whole future!" She looked at me as if I had said something ridiculous, impatience written all over her face. "My future? My future is being with Jett! And stop lecturing me already. I've heard it a million times. I'll say this one more time. Before seven tonight, transfer every cent you've made over the years into Jett's account. Otherwise, as far as I'm concerned, I don't have a brother." I stood frozen, staring at her. This was the sister I had carefully protected since she was ten. This was the person I once believed would stand by me even if the rest of the world turned its back on me. Now she looked at me as coldly as she would look at an enemy. Right then, a sickly-sweet voice called out from nearby. "Hails!" Hailey's eyes lit up at once. "Jett!" She ran straight over and threw her arms around him, and the two of them started kissing as if no one else were there. I looked at the boy. He had dark hair, wore a school hoodie, and had a bright, sunny smile. He looked completely harmless. However, he was the one who had texted Hailey in the middle of the night, coaching her to run away from home. He was also the one who had taught her to lie to me and turn against her own family. I did not know how I got over there. By the time I realized what I was doing, my hand was already raised. My fist slammed hard into Jett's face. He sucked in a sharp breath and stumbled back several steps, clutching his face as he looked pitifully at Hailey. "Hails... Your brother, he..." Hailey's expression changed instantly, and she shoved me with all her strength. "What are you doing?!" I staggered back and landed hard on the ground, scraping a large patch of skin off my palms until beads of blood seeped through. She carefully shielded Jett behind her. When she turned back to me, she looked ready to tear me apart. "Listen to me, Jake Donahue. Jett is the one person in this world I want to protect more than anything. If you lay a finger on him again, I'll fight you with everything I have!" Chapter 2 "One more thing. You'd better give Jett the money you owe him, or I swear I'll make you regret it!" With that, she took Jett's hand and walked off without looking back. I sat slumped on the ground, watching the two of them walk away. The students and parents leaving the testing center shot me strange looks, and their whispers stung my ears. The sun was blinding, yet I felt cold all over. This was the sister I had given everything to raise. This was the sister I would have given up anything for. I sat there, laughing and crying at the same time. My tears mixed with the blood on my palms. I could not tell which hurt more. … I made my way home in a daze. The whole way, Hailey's words kept replaying in my head. She had turned in a blank test. She was going to spend four years having fun with Jett. If I did not give him the money, she would make me regret it. Every word cut into my heart like a knife, over and over again. Only when I reached my front door did I understand what she meant. My clothes, shoes, and toiletries had been dumped all over the hallway. Even the family photo I had always treasured lay smashed on the floor, the glass shattered into pieces. It was the last picture of the four of us together. For all these years, whenever I felt like I could not go on, it was the one thing I could take out and look at to keep myself going. Now someone had smashed it and carelessly tossed it into the hallway. The sight made me so furious that my blood seemed to freeze in my veins. I raised my fist and pounded on the door. Moments later, it swung open. "Who is it?" It was Jett. When he saw me, there was not a trace of guilt in his eyes, only contempt. "Oh? What are you doing back?" I glared at him, trying hard to keep my emotions in check, but my hands would not stop shaking. "This is my home. Do I need your permission to come back? What gives you the right to throw my stuff out?" Jett leaned against the doorframe, running a hand through his hair, and answered breezily. "Oh, I told Hails to toss it. It's not really right for an outsider like you to be living here, is it?" An outsider? He was calling me an outsider? This was my home. This was the home our parents had left behind. This was the home Hailey and I had shared for all these years. Yet a boyfriend she had only known for a short while was standing in my doorway, calling me an outsider? Shaking all over, I tried to push my way inside, but Jett shoved me straight back out. Caught off guard, I stumbled and slammed into the hallway wall. The back of my head hit it with a dull thud, and my vision went black for a second. "You..." Before I could say anything more, a familiar voice came from inside. "Knock it off, Jake." Hailey stepped out and leaned into Jett's arms, looking down her nose at me as if I were some outsider who had shown up to cause a scene. "This is my home. Someday, it'll be mine and Jett's. Of course, he can do whatever he wants." I froze. It felt as if something had slammed into my chest, and the pain nearly knocked me off my feet. She kept going, "Besides, whatever Mom and Dad left behind should go to me anyway. I'm a girl, so I should get all the good stuff. Letting you live here for free all these years was already more than generous of me." She said it with complete conviction, as if I had truly been taking advantage of her all along. I opened my mouth, but my throat closed up, and not a single word came out. I could not believe these words were coming from the sister I had raised. She was the same little girl who used to cling to me in tears and say, "You're all I have left." Now she stood in front of me, telling me I had been living there for free and that she had already been generous enough. Then Jett chimed in and started counting on his fingers. "You've lived here seven years. Say 3,000 a month, that's 36,000 a year, so seven years comes out to 252,000. That's not even counting HOA fees or utilities. When are you planning to pay up?" He looked up at me with a smug grin. Chapter 3 Did Jett say 252,000? I looked at the two teenagers in front of me. One was the sister I had raised on my own. The other was the boy who kept swearing he would spend the rest of his life with her. They stood at my front door, fully convinced they had every right to throw me out. They even expected me to pay them rent. I suddenly laughed. The longer I laughed, the more my eyes stung. "Do you two even know? This place stopped being ours a long time ago." After the accident, our parents had been found mainly at fault and owed the other party a huge settlement. The apartment was sold in the second month after they died. It went for 800,000, and every cent went toward the debt. Hailey was still in school at the time. I was afraid she would worry, afraid she would feel like she no longer had a home. More than anything, I was afraid it would make her insecure and sensitive and leave her unable to hold her head up. That was why I kept it from her and signed a lease with the new owner, renting the same apartment back. The rent was 3,500 a month, and I paid every cent of it. All of it was so she could still come home to her old room. All of it was so she could believe that even though Mom and Dad were gone, home was still here. Yet now she stood in front of me and told me to my face that she was throwing me out. "What are you talking about?" Hailey suddenly shouted. She looked at me in disbelief, as if I had just told the most outrageous lie. Jett, however, let out a cold laugh and folded his arms. "Wow, that actually sounds pretty convincing." He turned to Hailey, his voice softening. "Hails, don't believe him. He just doesn't want to hand the place over to you, so he made up an excuse. People like him will say anything for money." To my shock, Hailey nodded. When she looked at me again, her eyes had gone cold. "Jake, I never thought you'd stoop this low. You'd even drag Mom and Dad into your lies just to keep an apartment!" My heart sank completely. I had explained everything and told her the truth, yet she still refused to believe me. All it took was one word from Jett, and everything I had given, everything I had kept from her, and every reason I had for it became some kind of scheme in her eyes. She pointed at my things in the hallway, her voice vicious. "Get out. Take your stuff and get out right now!" She was so loud that the neighbors started opening their doors to peek out. Our next-door neighbor, Loretta Grimes, walked over with a frown and took in the mess strewn across the hallway. "What's going on here?" I took a deep breath, about to explain. Before I could say a word, Jett jumped in to play the victim first. "Everyone, come look at this. This is my girlfriend's brother. After her parents passed away, this apartment went to my girlfriend, Hailey. She felt sorry for him, so she let him keep living here. "We never expected him to sleep around and bring home a different woman every other night. We just couldn't take it anymore, so we asked him to move out. Now, he's throwing a fit and refusing to leave. He's even claiming the place is his and threatening to take us to court." As he spoke, Jett's eyes slowly reddened and welled with tears, as if he had been terribly wronged. He was a good actor. If I had not known the whole truth, even I might have fallen for it. The others did not know the truth, though. Loretta turned to look at me, and something in her expression shifted. More neighbors poked their heads out, and everyone started talking at once. "He always seemed like such a decent young man. I never would've guessed." "You really never know with people." "His sister's not even an adult yet. That's just awful." Every word dug into my heart like a knife. I was shaking with rage, and my vision kept going dark. I could put up with Hailey misunderstanding me. I could put up with her immaturity. I could even put up with her taking everything I had done for granted. What I could not put up with was Jett standing at my door, twisting the truth and dragging my name through the mud. "Shut up!" I lost control and lunged at Jett, grabbing him by the collar. He let out a startled shout and stumbled backward. Hailey froze for a second before letting out a furious shout. Chapter 4 "Let go of him!" I did not let go. I held on to Jett as tightly as I could. At that moment, only one thought filled my head. I was going to shut his lying mouth for good and make sure he never spread another word of his garbage. "Hails!" Jett shouted. The next second, a hand shoved hard against my shoulder. It was Hailey. I toppled sideways, and my foot missed the step. The back of my head slammed against the edge of a stair, and then I tumbled down the staircase like a rag doll. Chaos filled my ears. The neighbors cried out in alarm. Jett was wailing, and Hailey was shouting. Over and over came the dull thud of my body hitting the stairs. As the world spun around me, the last thing I saw was Hailey's back as she stood shielding Jett. After that, everything went black. … When I woke up again, I was in the hospital. The fluorescent light overhead stung my eyes, and the smell of disinfectant filled my nose and left my throat raw. I tried moving my fingers. The hospital room was empty. Hailey was not there, and neither was anyone else I knew. Just then, a nurse pushed the door open. When she saw that I was awake, she looked visibly relieved. "Oh, thank goodness you're finally awake! Do you have any idea how bad this is? You needed six stitches in the back of your head, you've got a fractured shoulder blade, and don't even get me started on all the cuts and scrapes. How could you be so careless?" She kept fussing as she changed my bandages, her tone scolding yet full of sympathy. I only lay there, staring blankly at the ceiling. I did not shed a single tear. Maybe this was what it meant to be too heartbroken to cry. After a while, I asked the nurse to hand me my phone. The screen lit up with dozens of unread messages, all from Hailey and Jett. [Jake, I'm out of money. Send me 2,000.] [Why aren't you answering me?] [If you don't send me money right now, I'm done calling you my brother!] Then came Jett's. [If you don't clean your junk out of the hallway, I'm throwing it all out.] [Hear me?] [Fine. Don't say I didn't warn you.] I read through them one by one. The soul-crushing pain I had felt at first was gone. All that remained was a cold numbness. To her, it did not matter that I had been pushed down the stairs or rushed to the hospital. What mattered was that I had not sent her money yet. What mattered was that my things were in her way. I opened Hailey's contact, blocked her, and deleted her number. Then I opened Jett's and did the same. Once that was done, I called my boss. He picked up almost immediately. "Hey, about that out-of-state assignment you mentioned before. I'll take it." I had never dared to say yes before. The city was far away, and the assignment would last at least two years. I was afraid that if I went that far, I would not be able to look after Hailey. I worried she would not eat well, that people would take advantage of her, and that without anyone keeping an eye on her, she would go down the wrong path. Now, though, I was no longer afraid. I was not even worried anymore. On the other end, my boss sounded pleasantly surprised. "Jake, you finally came around! You know the pay out there is three times what you're making here. If you're in, I'll have HR start the paperwork right away." After I hung up, I looked up my landlord's number and sent a text: [Hi, I won't be renewing the lease on the apartment. Feel free to start looking for a new tenant.] Once the message went through, I stared at the screen for a long time. It felt as though something inside me had finally snapped, and I felt lighter at last. Three days later, HR let me know the paperwork had been approved. I packed up everything that same day, and with my suitcase in tow, I left the city I had lived in for 24 years. … That night, the doorbell rang at the apartment. Hailey cursed under her breath, tossed her phone aside, and went to answer it. "Who is it?" It was the landlord. He looked Hailey up and down, then motioned the movers to step in. "The lease is up. Get everything out of here and toss it!" Hailey and Jett both froze on the spot.