“I am sick and tired of looking at you!” Chloe’s voice violently bounced off the high, vaulted ceilings. “Do you have any idea how exhausting it is to constantly pretend I like you? You don’t belong here! Look at this house! Look at me! And look at you. You’re a pathetic, dragging anchor!”
My blood turned to ice. My feet felt like they were cemented to the marble floor. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t process the words hitting my ears.
“Chloe, please…”
It was my mother. Her voice was barely a whisper, trembling, fragile, and completely broken. The sound of her quiet sobbing tore through my chest like a jagged knife.
“Don’t you dare ‘Chloe, please’ me!” Chloe screamed, the sound of something heavy slamming against the hardwood floor echoing through the hall. “You are a burden! You sit around this mansion like a useless charity case. David works himself to the bone, and you just leech off his success. You’re embarrassing to have around my friends. You smell like cheap soap and old age. I want you out!”
