The story my parents told themselves was that I was the curse that took my sister. The day I was born was the day she died in a car crash. So they found a replacement, a girl Lily’s age named Pearl, and poured all their love into her. I became the weed in their perfect garden. “Weeds are born to be stepped on,” Pearl once told me, a smirk playing on her lips. She lived by that philosophy. She framed me for theft. She locked me out of the house in the freezing cold. Each of her lies was rewarded with my parents’ anger, their shouts, their fists. But when I finally withered, just as they’d always wanted, they began to panic. 1 I clutched Pearl’s backpack, my small frame shivering at the school gate long after the last bell. The sky had bruised from gray to purple to black. Old Mr. Henderson, the security guard, stepped out for a smoke, his brow furrowed when he saw me. “Still here, little one? It’s not safe out here for a girl your age. Why aren’t you home?” He offered the warmth of his security booth, but I just shook my head, my grip tightening on the worn straps of the bag. “My sister, Pearl, told me to wait right here. She’ll be out any minute.” “You said that four hours ago, kiddo,” he said, his voice gentle with pity. “I think she might have forgotten about you.” He saw he couldn’t move me and retreated with a sad shake of his head. Another hour crawled by. My fingers had gone from aching to numb when our housekeeper, Maria, came running, her breath misting in the frigid air. “Willow! My God, I’ve been searching for you all afternoon!” She chafed my hands between hers, her eyes welling up. “You’re like ice! Why didn’t you just go home?” “I couldn’t,” I whispered, hugging the backpack to my chest. “Pearl isn’t out yet. I couldn’t leave her.” Maria let out a long, pained sigh and guided me toward the car. “Honey… Pearl’s been home for hours.” She studied my face in the dim light of the car, her expression a mix of anger and sorrow. Finally, she just stroked my hair. “Listen to me, Willow. When we get inside, you don’t say a word. Let me do the talking. Do you understand?” I nodded, my mind clinging to a simple explanation. She just forgot. It was an accident. But before we even opened the front door, I could hear Pearl’s dramatic sobs. “I just asked her to hold my bag for a second, and when I turned around, she was gone!” she wailed. “My art project was in there! We only get one, and if it’s lost, my teacher will kill me!” My father’s voice was a low growl. “She’s getting more and more out of control.” I couldn't wait. Forgetting Maria’s warning, I burst through the door. “Pearl, I have it! Your bag is right here!” I held it up like a trophy. “I was a good girl. I waited right by the gate, but you never came.” I looked at her, expecting relief, maybe even a thank you. Instead, she shook her head, her eyes wide and innocent as she looked at our parents. “I didn’t tell her to wait for me.” My parents’ gazes swiveled between us. Before they could speak, Pearl’s face crumpled into tears. “Willow… why are you lying?” “I’m not!” I said, my voice trembling. I thrust my hands out for them to see. “Look, my hands are all frozen.” The skin was raw and chapped, swollen red from the biting wind. Maria stepped forward, her voice firm. “She was at the school gate for nearly five hours. The guard can confirm it. In this weather… she’s going to get sick.” My father’s face was a cold mask. My mother pulled Pearl closer, her voice stern. “Pearl, is what Willow is saying true?” Pearl didn’t answer. She just let tears tremble on her lashes before finally turning to our housekeeper. “Maria… I know you don’t like me. Because I’m not their real daughter.” That was all it took. My mother swept Pearl into a protective embrace, shooting a venomous glare at Maria. “I had no idea you were playing favorites behind our backs. Helping her concoct these despicable lies!” Maria began to apologize, to explain, but my mother wasn't listening. She dragged Maria into the other room, and their hushed, angry voices buzzed through the wall. When Maria left for the night, she paused at the door, her eyes filled with tears. She cupped my cheek, her hand warm against my frozen skin. “You take care of yourself, little one,” she whispered. “Don’t let her walk all over you.” “See you tomorrow, Maria,” I said, nodding dutifully. Her hand faltered for a second before she turned and walked away without looking back. I turned around to see my mother standing over me, her face a thundercloud. She was holding Pearl’s backpack, from which she’d pulled a mangled mess of construction paper and glitter. “So, you’re not just a liar, you’re a jealous little vandal, too? You destroyed your sister’s project on purpose?” I stared, shaking my head numbly. But she had already retrieved the thin, wooden ruler from a kitchen drawer. “When you do something wrong,” she said, her voice flat and cold, “there are consequences.” She struck my palm ten times. My hands were so frozen, the sting felt distant, like it was happening to someone else. From behind our mother, Pearl peeked out, her eyes shining. “It’s okay, Weed,” she said, her voice sickly sweet. “I forgive you this time. Just don’t lie anymore, okay?” 2 She produced a strawberry lollipop from behind her back and held it out to me. It had been so long since I’d had candy. Forgetting the ache in my hands, I snatched it and popped it in my mouth. It tasted strange, tangy and a little off, but my parents were watching. I dutifully finished the whole thing. In the middle of the night, I woke up choking. I couldn’t breathe. My skin was on fire, covered in tiny, raised bumps. I stumbled into the hallway and saw it in the kitchen trash: the fibrous pit of a mango. Nana always said I was allergic. Deathly allergic, she’d said. The lollipop. It must have been coated in mango juice. I scrambled for the medicine cabinet, but it was empty. I looked at my parents’ closed bedroom door and backed away. Mom’s rule was absolute: never, ever wake them. But my throat was closing. Panic set in. I ran to the kitchen sink and turned on the tap, forcing cold water down my throat, trying to flush the poison out. After what felt like an eternity, the swelling eased just enough for me to gasp for air. Then a new agony set in. A wave of icy cramps seized my stomach. I ran for the bathroom, but the door was locked. I turned. Pearl was standing behind me in the dark, a small, knowing smile on her face. “The toilet’s broken,” she said simply. “You’ll have to hold it.” I wanted to ask about the mango, but the pain was too sharp. “My stomach… it hurts so bad,” I whimpered. “Please, can I just go in?” “Are you going to be a bad girl, Weed? Are you going to disobey me?” She pointed to the front door. “There’s a public restroom in the park. Go there.” When I didn’t move, she sighed theatrically, unlocked the front door, and shoved me out into the black, starless night. My hands trembled as I found my way to the park, finished my business in the cold, dark restroom, and hurried back. I knocked on the door. Then knocked again, louder. No one came. I called for them, my voice a tiny thread of sound snatched away by the wind. “Mom? Dad?” They must have been sleeping too soundly. A light was on in Pearl’s room, but the window was too high for me to reach. After a long time, I gave up. I curled into a tight ball on the doormat, hugging my knees to my chest. When I lived with Nana, she told me stories every night until I fell asleep. But then she’d collapsed, and they’d taken her to the hospital, and she hadn’t come to visit me in a very, very long time. Exhaustion finally pulled me under. In my dreams, I saw her. Nana. Her face was as kind as I remembered. She stroked my hair and said, Willow, you have to take care of yourself. My parents never said it to my face, but I’d heard the neighbors talking. They said my parents blamed me for Lily’s death. That they would rather adopt a stranger who looked like her than raise me themselves. I didn’t understand what death meant, not really. All I knew was that with Nana, I was safe. For as long as I could remember, it had been just the two of us. My parents visited once, to tell me I’d be moving to the city for elementary school. I refused, clinging to Nana’s legs. I saw the look on their faces as they left. Mom had called me an ungrateful little brat. Nana told me she didn’t mean it. When you get bigger, and you’re a good girl, they’ll love you again, she’d promised. But one morning, I woke up and found her lying in the yard, a dark pool of blood spreading from her head. I ran for help, and they took her away in an ambulance. I never saw her again. My parents took me to this strange house and introduced me to Pearl. They told me to be nice to her, that she was the only princess in this house, and everyone had to do what she said. So when Pearl joked that my name should be Weed, my parents just laughed and agreed. I remembered Nana telling me that weeds were tough. She wanted me to be strong like them, to grow no matter what. If I could just make it through this one night, I thought, maybe I’d be a little tougher, too. 3 I woke to my mother shaking me. She’d found me curled on the doormat when she went to take out the trash. “When did you sneak out?” was all she asked, before hurrying me inside to get ready for school. But I felt awful. The bumps on my face were itching, my head was spinning, and I couldn’t stop shivering. “Mom,” I whispered, “I feel really sick. Can we go to the doctor?” Her brows knitted together in annoyance. She didn’t even look at me. “You’ve been in school for a week and you’re already trying to fake an illness? I knew bringing you here was a mistake.” Remembering Nana’s promise, I choked down my milk and followed Pearl to the car. The motion of the car made everything worse. My breath felt hot, and my eyelids were too heavy to keep open. When the driver took a sharp turn, the milk I’d forced down came rushing back up. I vomited all over the floor of the car. “Ew, Willow, you’re so gross!” Pearl shrieked. The driver, at least, was kind. “Little miss, we don’t have a change of clothes. Should we go back home?” The image of my mother’s disappointed face flashed in my mind. I shook my head. At school, Pearl made sure everyone knew what had happened. Kids pinched their noses when I walked by. No one would come near me. I kept my head down, my face burning. During class, my desk-mate huddled as far away from me as he could get. My teacher, Mrs. Davis, finally noticed. “Willow, honey, your face is so red!” Pearl piped up from across the room. “Willow’s face is a strawberry, and the red dots are the seeds!” The class erupted in laughter. I tried to smile along, but my stomach gurgled, and I knew I was going to be sick again. Mrs. Davis told the class to read quietly and then scooped me into her arms. She smelled warm and sweet, like Nana. The comfort was too much. I threw up again, all over her nice blouse. I burst into tears. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to!” But she didn’t scold me like Mom would have. She just felt my forehead. “Sweetheart, you’re burning up. You have a fever. We’re going to the hospital right now.” At the clinic, the doctor said my temperature was dangerously high. A few more hours, he said, and it could have caused permanent damage. They put me on an IV drip for two hours. By the time I was done, school was over. Mrs. Davis drove me back, gave my medicine to the driver waiting at the gate, and told me to rest. As I was about to get in the car, Pearl and her friends walked out. “Look, Stinky Weed is back!” one of them yelled. “Pearl, you’re not really going to ride with her, are you? She smells and she barfed all over the teacher.” They held their noses. One of the braver boys poked at the red bumps on my cheek with a pen. “What kind of weird disease is that? Is it contagious?” Pearl tossed her backpack at me, her face a mask of disgust. “Don’t you dare get me sick, Weed. You’re walking home today.” The driver didn’t dare argue with her. He just got in the car and drove away. I didn’t know the way home. I had to ask stranger after stranger, walking for what felt like miles until my stomach growled with hunger and I finally saw our house. My father opened the door. He grunted when he saw me. “Where have you been, messing around again? Look how late it is.” I started to lift my hand to show him the bruise from the IV, but he grabbed my arm and yanked me inside. Pearl was standing behind my mother, her face streaked with tears. My mother’s expression was cold and impatient. Her eyes bored into me. “Pearl says you stole something from her. Give it back. Now.”
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