Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 163802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 819(@200wpm)___ 655(@250wpm)___ 546(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 819(@200wpm)___ 655(@250wpm)___ 546(@300wpm)
“Rich jerks were always trying to get us scholarship kids to dance to their tune. But that doesn’t mean it’s not your fault when you don’t fucking say no.” He fixed on me. “But now you’re saying none of that is true?”
I slowly shook my head, feeling the weight of the lies and manipulations Sue weaved falling on me. I wasn’t sure, and I couldn’t ask the guys without giving myself away, but now I knew how completely she and Omma erased me.
She, with Omma’s help, convinced the guys that she was the one who got accepted into the prestigious Titan Prep, but unlike me, she sailed through with flying colors. Why wouldn’t they believe it? Sue told them a lie about a girl named Sarang, but I never went by my real name in high school. Everyone called me Sarah. Sarah Kim was the name under my yearbook photo. And the last name Kim was one I shared with five other Kims in my graduating class—further muddying the pool if anyone ever brought up the Kim girl who almost murdered Colin. There were a lot of Kim girls at Titan Prep, and Sue stuck herself among them.
All Sue had to do was tell the boys she went by Sarah too in high school and switched to Sue to differentiate from the Sarah everyone hated, and if they ever asked why Sarang wasn’t in the yearbook or why there were no photos of her anywhere, she’d say it was because Sarang Kim was her weirdo, loner freak cousin who never participated in anything or showed up for picture day.
Over the years, any rumors that swirled around she could easily gaslight away. Someone in town asks Sue about her sister in front of Alex? She’d just tell them the person got it wrong and meant her cousin. If anyone ever said twin, ditto on blaming it on the cousin-family resemblance. Everything gets blamed on a cousin that’s long gone, and Omma and Sue got to continue living the fantasy that I never existed. And in a community like this where scandals are swept under the rug and only gossiped about in private homes over tea, the guys never had a reason to dig deeper into the lies my family told.
“It’s not true.” I clasped my hands to stop them from shaking. “Sarang didn’t sabotage the trapdoor. She was framed.”
His eyes bugged. “What? Are you serious?”
“As hemlock tea.” Be careful, Sarah. Think this through. “The truth is that Sarang had an enemy during those years. Someone who hated her guts so much, they were willing to hurt an innocent kid to get rid of her,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “But when she tried to tell the truth, no one believed her.”
Understanding dawned. “Because all they saw was some troublemaker scholarship kid.” He put his hand over his mouth. “Holy shit. She was expelled! Colin almost died! Who could hate anyone that much?”
“A truly sick and twisted person.” Not a word was a lie. “But Omma didn’t believe her. She was convinced Sarang was trying to shift the blame and weasel out of punishment by blaming someone else, so she kicked her out and...” I dropped my gaze. “And Sarang had no one.”
“Holy shit. Holy shit!” Micah goggled at me. “But I don’t get it, why would you lie to us about that? Why not just tell us your cousin was framed?”
“Because I was a part of it.”
Micah’s jaw fell open, but nothing came out.
“The truth is I hated Sarang too. I hated all the attention she got. I hated that Omma wouldn’t stop comparing me to her. I hated that Sarang had friends, and fun, and a life—and all I had was a tutor with terrible halitosis. I hated her, so I helped the bitch that did it by getting her into the school. She didn’t go to Titan Prep, so she needed someone to let her in—that was me.”
And that wasn’t a lie either. It was because of me that Sue was able to slip onto campus without raising an alarm. She did have my face after all.
“Oh, Sue...”
“I know.” I could barely speak around the lump in my throat. “I’m a miserable, shit person. The only thing I can say in my defense is that I didn’t know what she’d do. Never in a million years did I imagine she’d let her hatred of Sarang go that far. I didn’t realize she was a monster with a human face mask until it was much too late.”
Micah nodded slowly, feeling everything I told him sink in.
“After Colin was hospitalized, I kept quiet,” I said. “I let Omma believe Sarang did it. I let everyone in town paint her as a psycho, even though I knew the truth. I was a coward.” Anger bled into my voice. “A coward then, and every single day after that I went on lying and lying instead of telling everyone—most of all you, Alex, and Rhodes—the truth.