Chapter 3

I opened my mouth to speak, but Dad waved me off impatiently, as if he were shooing away something unpleasant.

"Get out of here. You're an eyesore. I'm taking Joey to her favorite restaurant. She needs the energy for this afternoon's exam."

Joey stayed nestled against his chest, half her face hidden behind his arm. She blinked at me with a quick, sly flutter, the corner of her mouth curling into a smirk. There wasn't a trace left of the crying, helpless act from a minute ago.

The three of them turned and walked away without a single backward glance. The crowd had gotten their show, so they scattered too, still whispering and pointing at me as they left.

I wasn't angry. I actually smiled.

That afternoon, when I walked into the exam hall, Joey made a point of swinging by my desk. She leaned in close to my ear, dropping her voice so that only I could hear.

"You're nothing. You belong on a factory floor, not in a classroom. That Ivy spot was always going to be mine."

More comments floated through the air. "Ha, the female lead told her off. The side character is just a prop."

I ignored her. The second I got the math exam, I started running through wrong solutions in my head.

The right answer to a multiple-choice question was A, so I kept repeating to myself, "Pick C. I've seen this exact type of problem before. It's definitely C."

When a fill-in-the-blank came out to 5, I groaned to myself, "Wait, that can't be right. It's obviously 7. I almost lost points on a stupid mistake."

Even for the last problem on the exam, the 14-point one worth the most, I swapped every correct step for the wrong one. I went through the formulas and derivations three full times in my head, making sure she could understand it all clearly.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched her pen fly across the page without a single pause. She never touched her scratch paper. She wrote faster and smoother than anyone in the room.

Every exam after that followed the same pattern. I waited for her to turn in her paper early, then raced to fill in all the correct answers.

And after every single one, she found some new way to run to Mom and Dad with a complaint. One time, she said I'd been glaring at her during the exam and that it threw off her concentration. Another time, she said I'd been coughing on purpose outside the exam hall to rattle her.

Mom and Dad chewed me out every time. I stood there and took it without a word of protest.

They had no idea that every answer on every sheet Joey had filled out so confidently was wrong. Because I'd made sure of it.

…

The laughter in the living room died the moment I pushed open the front door, my exam bag in hand.

Mom came out of the kitchen in her apron. When she saw that it was me, her face went cold.

"What are you standing there for? Tonight is about celebrating Joey. She just estimated her score, and she's practically guaranteed a spot at the top schools. Don't come in here and ruin her mood."

Joey was curled up on the couch. When she heard Mom talking, she looked up and waved her phone at me.

"Hey, El. Have you checked your estimated score yet? A bunch of our classmates have been asking how you did this time. I mean, you always used to copy off me, so they're curious."

I didn't take the bait. I walked straight to my room and shut the door, cutting off the noise outside.

I opened my phone and scrolled through my feed. The very first post was one Joey had put up ten minutes ago. "Estimated my score. Looking good. Hard work pays off."

The comments underneath had already stacked up by the dozens, all our classmates falling over themselves to praise her.

"That's insane. You're literally a genius."

"Top schools for sure. Unlike a certain cheater who probably can't even get into community college now that she's got nobody to copy off of."

I scrolled further down until I found my own post from three months ago, a photo of my first-place certificate from an academic competition. The newest comments had all been left today, and they were vicious.

"The cheater has the nerve to show off an award? I bet she stole that from Joey too."