Exchange - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

This was one of the few times I could beat Jessica. She always won. I was sick of it. I got home, and Jessica immediately launched into a tirade. “Mom! Dad! Look! Ashley’s not studying! She’s busy flirting with boys! She should be expelled!” Ethan’s love letter lay on the coffee table.

My mom, shockingly, turned sweet. “Ashley, honey, what do you want for dinner?”

Dad puffed on his cigarette, greed flickering in his eyes. “Ethan Miller? The Miller Group? Ashley, you need to lock this down.” He scowled at Jessica. “Stop bothering your sister. The Miller Group has Harvard graduates lining up for jobs. You might need your sister’s help someday.”

Turns out, my parents didn’t love a specific daughter. They loved whichever daughter was useful. Jessica’s eyes burned with jealousy and rage. I smiled gently. “I’d just prefer no shellfish.”

From that day on, shellfish vanished from our dinner table. Jessica’s protests – “I need fish for brainpower! High school is so demanding! What if I don’t get into Harvard?!” – were met with, “Your sister’s allergic, Jessica. If something happens to her, we’re ruined.”

Our positions in the family flipped. At school, Ethan pursued me with all the flamboyant tactics of a rich, spoiled playboy. His purple Lamborghini waited for me every afternoon, whisking us away to fancy restaurants.

Expensive gifts and designer clothes piled up in my room. Ethan made his disdain for Jessica clear, much to my amusement. When the class rearranged desks, giving students with good grades first pick of partners, Jessica chose Ethan.

She must have thought he’d finally see her inner beauty. Instead, he complained to his mother about Jessica’s “harassment.” The next day, everyone had single desks. The whispers started again. Jessica’s carefully constructed confidence crumbled.

On my seventeenth birthday, Jessica saw the nearly five–thousand–dollar bracelet Ethan had given me. She snapped. “Why?! Why do they all like you?! Ethan, all of them! You’re nothing! You’re just a pretty face!” “How can you be better than me?! You don’t deserve this!”

I pulled her in front of the mirror. She was twice my size. Thanks to my parents‘ favoritism, I’d been underfed growing up, while Jessica had been overfed.

My voice was soft, almost hypnotic. “Jessica, if you were a guy, who would you choose?”

Jessica stared at her reflection, speechless. The contrast was stark. She turned and walked into her room.

The robotic voice I’d been waiting for finally echoed in my head. “Host, Jessica requests to trade her intelligence for your beauty. Do you accept?”

“Accept.”

Jealousy had finally driven her mad. This time, I would win. Hard work, combined with natural talent, was an unbeatable combination. During winter break of junior year, I started gaining weight. My clear skin broke out in acne.

At the same time, I experienced the joy of a photographic memory. I could glance at multiple–choice questions and the answers would appear in my mind, no calculations needed. New concepts clicked instantly.

I fell in love with math, a subject that used to make my head spin. Before, I’d study the same problem types over and over, but the slightest change in the variables would stump me. My mind had felt like it was wrapped in cotton wool.

My sister, as the teachers said, was a true genius. Her starting point was a finish line most people would never reach. And she’d squandered it.