The SATs were barely over before my sister ran off with my boyfriend.

I had no idea. I sat at her college send-off party until every dish on the table went cold, and only then did her message come through.

【Sis, you promised you'd grant me one wish after my SATs. So can I have your boyfriend?】

【Doesn't matter if you say no. I already eloped with him. He just got us a room. Don't bother waiting up.】

I told myself she was young. She didn't know where the line was.

But I still couldn't stop myself from calling him.

He didn't pick up. He sent a photo instead.

Clothes strewn across the floor, reeking of something raw and recently violent.

The pink underwear I'd bought for my sister was tangled in the mess, and the sight of it burned through me.

【She kept begging me for a coming-of-age gift. I went soft and gave in.】

【You've always spoiled her. Think of it as lending me out to make her happy.】

【Relax. Nothing changes between the three of us. So don't hurt her, okay?】

My whole body went cold. My finger hovered over the screen for a long time, but I never replied.

I'd given them too much, it seemed.

So much that they'd both forgotten they were nothing but dust ground into the dirt.

……

I saw the guests out and sat alone in the empty banquet hall.

Staring at the cold food on the table.

The sweet-and-sour pork with pineapple—her favorite, tangy and bright—because I'd wanted her future to be just as rich.

The crispy roast squab, ordered to build her back up after three grueling years, because I'd wanted her to soar.

Steamed sea bass. Typhoon shelter crab. Eight-treasure stuffed duck……

I'd picked every single dish with Julian Crawford at my side.

Just last night, he'd held me close and said, voice tinged with jealousy, “You're so good to her it makes me jealous.”

Not even a full day later, the Julian who had looked at no one but me turned around and fell into my sister's arms.

How was that possible?

I felt lightheaded, grabbed my car keys, and rushed out. I had to see it with my own eyes.

The hotel logo in the video was one I knew by heart.

It belonged to the Winfield family. My family.

I got the room key from the hotel manager, pushed the door open, and a thick, cloying smell hit me in the face.

Julian heard the noise. He barely glanced at me, pressed a finger to his lips. “Shh.”

Rose Winfield was burrowed under the covers, her face slack with satisfaction, fast asleep.

I stood frozen where I was.

I watched him patiently wipe her body down, dress her in a nightgown, tuck the blanket around her, and only then turn to face me.

I was still shaking. The scratch marks across his chest made me gag.

My falling apart seemed to amuse him.

“Surprised? She's had feelings for me for a long time, actually. She's been wanting us to be together.”

“I just didn't want it getting in the way of her exams. So I held off until the SATs were done.”

Something detonated inside my skull. I grabbed the vase from the entryway table and hurled it at him.

Rose startled awake, and he gathered her into his arms in one motion, patting her back, murmuring soft comfort as if she were the only one in the room who mattered.

I was trembling all over, but I couldn't hold the question back：“Rose, have I not been good to you? If you wanted a boyfriend, college is full of them. Why him?”

“You're the one who always told me what's yours is mine.” She didn't even flinch. “Besides, I don't want to go to college. Graduate and then work myself to death like you? No thanks.”

“Julian already promised me. The second I'm old enough, he'll marry me. I'll just stay home and be a rich man's wife.”

I looked at the dreamy anticipation on her face and felt nothing but absurdity.

I'd given her an open sky, and she chose to be a parasite wrapped around someone else's branch.

My fingertips were numb. I turned to Julian. “She's a kid who doesn't know better. What's your excuse?”

“She's the one you raised, isn't she?”

He dipped his head and kissed her shoulder, voice light as air. “Ida, you know what I hate most? That look—like you're above everyone. She's a grown woman. She can handle herself.”

I stood where I was, eyes drifting to the thermostat.

Seventy-two degrees. Somehow, I'd never felt so cold.

He studied me for a long moment, then sighed. “Look, don't make this harder than it needs to be. It's not like I'm leaving you. Rose is just young—I need to take care of her a bit more, that's all.”

“Don't worry. The wedding next month is still on.”

I actually laughed.

So he remembered we were getting married.

But what made him think I'd still be standing here, waiting?

I didn't say another word. I turned and left.

Before the door clicked shut, Rose's small voice carried through：“Her eyes just now were so scary……”

“Scared of what? You're her sister. She'd never lay a hand on you,” Julian's voice dropped, soft and low. “Besides, you've got me. There's nothing she can do.”

I stood outside the door for a moment, perfectly still, before I made myself walk away.

It wasn't grief, exactly. It was bewilderment.

They seemed to have forgotten—I was the one who built them up. I could just as easily tear them back down.

I'd barely gotten home when a server from the banquet hall called to ask if I wanted the food boxed up.

“Throw it out.”

A hesitant pause. “It's hardly been touched. Seems like such a waste……”

“Then feed it to the pigs.”

I hung up and the irony hit like a slap.

All those years of giving. What had I been doing, if not feeding pigs?

I took out the acceptance letter from an art academy in the UK, along with the deed to a place near campus.

They were supposed to be my surprise for Rose at the college send-off party.

No need anymore. I tore them to pieces and dropped them in the trash.

Then I called the wedding planner and cancelled everything.

After that, I spent the entire night on the phone, informing every guest that the wedding was off.

It was like dropping a stone into still water. Everyone around me erupted, demanding to know what had happened.

I said nothing. My hand slid into my pocket and found two chocolates.

After I'd fainted once from low blood sugar, Julian started slipping a few into my pocket every morning before I left the house.

I unwrapped one and put it in my mouth.

The sweetness dissolved on my tongue, and without any warning at all, the tears fell.

I was ashamed to realize I was nowhere near as strong as I'd thought.

He wasn't an old coat. You couldn't just decide to throw him away and be done with it.

Everyone said he loved me like his life depended on it. How much? Every strawberry I ate had the stem already picked off. Every shrimp was peeled clean before it reached me. I never had to wrestle a crab claw open myself.

He'd answer my calls at two in the morning. He'd warm my feet under the blankets on winter nights. He'd cross half the city to buy roasted chestnuts I'd mentioned once in passing.

He'd even thrown himself in front of a mugger's knife for me. The scar over his heart had nearly cost him his life.

Memory after memory, layered so thick I couldn't find my way forward or back.

Explaining was exhausting. I told everyone the wedding was just postponed.

The night stretched on and on. I couldn't sleep.

At dawn, the bridal boutique called.

“Ms. Winfield, Mr. Crawford brought someone in to try on wedding gowns. Does this mean the wedding isn't cancelled after all?”

“The girl looks so much like you. Is she your sister, or a fitting model?”

My grip tightened around the phone until my knuckles went white.

It was Rose.

She looked so much like me that anyone who didn't know better assumed she was my blood sister.

But the first time I saw her was only five years ago.

My father and I had gone into the mountains to survey an eco-tourism project. We found her outside the most run-down mud house in the village.

A thirteen-year-old girl crouched by the well, scrubbing a pile of laundry taller than she was, fingers red from the cold.

She looked up to wipe the sweat from her face, and I stopped dead.

Those eyes—they were mine. Especially the light brown beauty mark beneath her right eye, identical to mine down to the millimeter.

Back then, her hair was dry and thin, her skin rough and sallow.

Dust-colored, the kind of girl who could disappear into the mud wall behind her.

But she wasn't timid. Her cracked hands grabbed my sleeve and held on tight.

“Big sister……can you take me with you? I'll be good.”

I looked at that last flicker in her eyes, and nodded.

Dad didn't need convincing. The moment he saw her, he agreed.

I was supposed to have had a biological sister, but she never made it. Mom died in the delivery.

Her mother had named her “Sophie Parker”—a name that meant "hoping for a little brother." That was all she'd been worth to them.

When we offered money, her mother grinned ear to ear and let us take the girl without a single question.

Back in the city, I renamed her Rose Winfield.

Giving her our surname meant making her a real Winfield.

Giving her a new first name was a wish—that her life from now on would be full, and sweet, and nothing like what came before.

I gave her the best room, the best clothes, the best tutors. I handed her everything on a silver plate.

And in the end, she wanted my fiancé too.

The irony was, when Julian first met her, he'd frowned and said：“Why'd you bring home a knockoff version of yourself? No matter how much she looks like you, you're irreplaceable.”

And she had been just as stubborn“I don't need him to like me. As long as you like me, that's enough.”

I told the sales staff to go on helping her, then drove to the bridal boutique.

I still couldn't let it go. I needed to understand.

How had they gone from open mutual dislike to something that grew into love, right under my nose?

The wedding gown had been made to my measurements.

On Rose, who was seven years younger than me, it gaped at the waist.

Julian stood beside me in his groom's suit, hands in his pockets, watching from a distance as a clerk retook her measurements.

“She really does look like you, doesn't she? It's almost like I can see you in a wedding dress.”

“Only she's younger. More alive. And the way she looks at me—it's pure admiration.”

“Not like you. You've always been independent. You've never needed me.”

I turned to stare at him, unable to believe what I was hearing.

The soft curve of his smile told me everything I needed to know.

A younger, more alive version of me.

So that was it. That was it all along.

The knockoff he once sneered at had grown up—but not too much.

An eighteen-year-old “me.”

A “me” who depended on him completely.

Of course he couldn't resist.

My stomach turned.

I bit down on the tip of my tongue until I tasted blood, and only then did the nausea stay down.

His gaze lingered on her. He hadn't noticed a thing.

“You'll be the maid of honor at our wedding, right? Rose and me.”

“And you've done this before—help us with the prep, yeah?”

My mind went blank. “What wedding?”

“Still pretending?” He laughed lightly. “Why do you think we're here trying on wedding outfits?”

“Rose needs this. We can't get the license yet, so she's been set on having a ceremony.”

“You've always been thoughtful—you figured it out, didn't you? That's why you called everyone last night to push the date.”

“You've done so much for us. Once this is all over, the three of us should take a trip together. What do you say?”

Before I could open my mouth, Rose came over holding up her skirt. “Really?! I want to go to Hawaii to chase dolphins, and Iceland to see the northern lights, and Paris to shop for bags!”

The veil draped over her bare shoulders. She did look beautiful.

Sophie Parker had been a weed withering in a corner.

I was the one who had watered her with money, time, and love until she bloomed into the polished, delicate Rose Winfield standing here today.