The Twin They Threw Away Came Back a Billionaire

Three days before the tuition deadline at the state university, I finally had my first year's fees saved up.

When I asked Marvin Stephens to hand the money over, his head was down, thumbs moving over a text to Harper Fox. He didn't even look up.

I used the tuition to sign Harper up for a dance class. She goes to a private school. If she can't perform, the other girls will laugh at her.

"Just let her have it. You can reapply next year."

For as long as I could remember, Mom had told me to give in to my twin sister.

When the family could only afford one can of imported formula, she said Harper was frail and gave it to her, and I got the domestic kind.

When Harper didn't get into college, Mom spent all the tuition money sending her to a private school and pushed me out into the working world early.

Even when it came to college applications, she bought Harper the whole Apple set, and tossed me some forty-dollar off-brand phone for seniors.

Marvin was the only person who ever stood up for me, so he was the only one I trusted to keep my tuition.

But somewhere along the way, without my noticing, he'd changed too.

When I stayed silent, he finally looked up.

"Mia Fox, don't be like this. Harper and I are going ahead to Chicago to set things up for you, so we can take care of you when you get there."

All at once it felt completely pointless.

I pulled out my phone and told Mrs. James yes, I'd take the live-in tutoring job for her son who was studying overseas.

She asked, "You don't need to keep your little boyfriend company anymore?"

I gave a bitter smile. "No. I already gave that up too."

After the screen went dark, the room fell dead quiet.

Until the patter of Harper's footsteps came running in from the hall.

"Marvin, your delivery's here!"

Marvin's whole face softened. Same as always, he handed the mango pomelo smoothie to Harper.

"Light ice, less sugar. That's right, isn't it?"

"But I'm sick of that one. I want something different today." Harper pushed out her lower lip.

Without a second thought, Marvin swapped my jasmine green milk tea for hers.

The moment the mango pomelo smoothie was pressed into my hand, my fingers trembled without meaning to.

I'm allergic to mango.

Marvin remembered that Harper wanted light ice and less sugar, but he'd forgotten I can't touch mango.

Yet he used to be the very first one to panic when I accidentally ate mango, the one who carried me on his back and ran miles to the hospital.

I quietly pushed the drink aside.

Marvin's brow creased. "What? Sulking again?"

"Stop keeping score against Harper over every little thing. She's your sister, not some stranger."

It was Harper who rolled her eyes. "Mia can't eat mango! Marvin, did you forget?"

Only then did Marvin shut his mouth, embarrassed.

That evening Mom asked Marvin to stay for dinner.

Harper's pretty new princess dress had just arrived, and she couldn't wait to tear it open and hold it up against herself.

Mom's eyes shone as she watched her. Then her gaze landed on me, and her whole manner changed.

"Harper's got such presence. Anything looks good on her."

"Not like Mia, all dowdy and plain."

But she never mentioned that a little princess's presence is built with money and love, neither of which she had ever given me.

I kept my head down and shoveled in my rice while she scolded on.

"Look at you, shut up tight like a clam, mouth stuck out all day. Anyone would think I owed you something."

Only when he got interrupted from admiring Harper's new outfit did Marvin say, in an irritated tone, "Don't say that, ma'am. Mia's fine too."

I suddenly thought back to something at school.

Some boy had said of Harper, "She's pretty, sure, but her nose isn't high enough."

Marvin's face had changed on the spot. He grabbed the boy by the collar.

"Say that again, I dare you."

"Don't you know that judging a girl's looks can really hurt her pride?"

So he knew words like that could hurt someone's pride. It was just that, in his eyes, my pride wasn't worth mentioning.

After dinner I took a shower to settle myself, and walked straight into Marvin coming the other way.

He was in high spirits. "Since you don't need to save for tuition anymore, let's go on a trip tomorrow. Like we said we would."

My college dream was in pieces, and a graduation trip meant nothing to me now, but I remembered what I'd told him once.

"When I graduate, I want to see the ocean. Mom takes Harper every year, and I've never been, not once."

Back then he'd stroked my head and smiled. "Okay. When you graduate, I'll take you."

So, hardly knowing why, I nodded, and just as I was about to ask what he'd arranged,

I turned and saw him holding Harper's backpack.

Power bank, sunscreen, a spare raincoat, packing one thing after another into it.

Even her pads, tucked neatly into a little pouch.

"Harper's been spoiled her whole life. She doesn't know how to pack. It has to be me."

I watched him fuss over her, back and forth, and my heart sank again. Not once had he ever packed any of that for me.

The car Marvin booked came early. Thinking I'd finally get to see the ocean, I drifted off to sleep on the way.

When cheerful music woke me, it took me a moment to understand. What lay ahead wasn't the ocean. It was a fairy-tale theme park.

Harper ran ahead, thrilled.

"Marvin, so this was the surprise! I always said I want to be a princess forever, and you actually remembered!"

"Will you be my knight forever, and protect me always?"

Marvin bent down with a smile and gave a perfect knight's bow.

"Of course."

He chased after her, leaving me alone to carry three people's bags, like a maid.

I got through the day in a daze. On the way back, I found out Harper had bought several big bags of merchandise.

Any one of those bags cost more than half a year of my tuition.

This world really is unfair. Same family, same age, even the same face.

The back seat was crammed full. Marvin gave me a troubled look.

"Mia, this stuff can't take being squashed."

"And I don't feel right sending Harper home alone. You've always been independent. Just make your own way back."

Before I could answer, he had already started the car.

I looked around at the strange surroundings, gripping the senior phone that didn't even have navigation, and broke out in a cold sweat.

It seemed independent people had no right to be looked after, born without it. No matter how hard the road, they had to walk it alone.

I asked several people and switched buses several times before I reached the last transfer station.

In the cold wind, the phone suddenly buzzed.

It was Marvin.

"You there yet?"

I was holding back the anger inside and didn't want to reply, but the next second the messages came popping up one after another.

"What's the matter with you, why so slow?"

"You're a grown adult and you have no sense of timing at all. Harper and I already ate dinner."

"Sort it out yourself. Don't keep people waiting next time."

"Out in the real world, nobody's going to cut you any slack."

I stared hard at the screen, and the tears blurred my vision in an instant.

My fingers typed and deleted, deleted and typed again.

Right then, the last bus of the night roared past.

And the tears finally broke loose.

I walked home along the platform, one step at a time.

My old shoes had rubbed the skin raw into blisters, and every step drove the pain straight through me.

But pain has a way of keeping you clear-headed.

Some people just aren't worth holding on to.

The next day, I took the few hundred dollars I had left and traded my phone for the cheapest smartphone I could find.

My feet hadn't healed when the graduation party rolled around.

Dozens of classmates had booked a restaurant.

The few of us who were close shared a table.

Harper wore a pure white dress, her makeup done to perfection.

The boys and girls in our class couldn't stop marveling.

"Harper's so pretty! They wouldn't let us wear makeup in school. They practically buried a movie star."

"Harper looks good without makeup too. She's gorgeous either way." Marvin's eyes were full of admiration.

And I sat right beside him, invisible.

The mood picked up fast, everyone comparing where they were headed.

Someone turned to me. "Mia, you scored so high. Which university are you going to?"

Before I could open my mouth,

Marvin took the question for me, easy as anything.

"Mia's repeating a year. She'll apply again next year."

It was a decision he'd made for me, all on his own, and yet he said it like it was the natural order of things.

The attention swung onto him. He played it casual, but there was a smugness in his eyes.

"I got into a top state university in Chicago, going with Harper. She got accepted by a prestigious prep school out there."

Our classmates looked envious, all of them praising what a perfect match the two of them made.

It was a while before someone asked,

"Didn't Mia score even higher than you? Why is she the one repeating a year?"

The question got swallowed under all the cheering, and sitting there beside them, I wasn't even a footnote.

Amid the laughter and chatter, the dishes came out one after another.

Harper picked up a jumbo shrimp and started peeling it, her movements clumsy.

A kid raised as a princess her whole life didn't even have to peel her own shrimp.

Marvin snatched it away and peeled it for her with practiced ease, and when he saw how much she liked it, he served her several more.

I remembered how it used to be.

He'd never once peeled a shrimp for me.

There was even a time I ate two extra, and he said,

"Go easy. You're already not as pretty as Harper. If you eat too much and break out, that only makes it worse."

Bernice Donaldson, across the table, knew the whole story. She couldn't stand watching it, and said, dripping with sarcasm,

"Marvin, you and Mia are the real couple here, aren't you?"

"I remember how sweet you two were back in junior year. There was that time Mia got sick, and you skipped class to sit with her in the nurse's office all afternoon."

"Right, right! Every night after study hall you two would walk through the little grove. Don't think none of us saw it."

The group chimed in, and Marvin's hands froze mid-peel.

"Harper's Mia's sister. We're family. I just care about her because of that."

I kept my head down, the food sitting on my chopsticks, not making it to my mouth for the longest time.

That line of his had turned, somewhere along the way, from a fact into a cover story.

After it broke up, everyone gathered for a photo outside the restaurant.

Marvin and Harper drifted to the very center without thinking, smiling, looking made for each other.

I got shoved off into a corner, and even in the photo they took, I was lost in the shadows.

In the car on the way back.

The class group chat was flooded with photos, and Marvin scrolled through them, delighted, the comments underneath all about how good Harper looked.

Someone tagged Marvin. "You and Harper look like a real couple standing together. When are you two going public?"

The corner of Marvin's mouth curved up. He replied with a smiley face and left it at that.

On the road Harper yawned and let her head fall against Marvin's shoulder.

Marvin gently smoothed her hair for her.

I turned away and leaned my head against the cold window.

Watching the streetlights fall away behind us, one by one.

By the time I got home it was evening, and the moment I pushed open the door, I froze.

The living room was buried under my books and belongings.

Mom was in my room with a tape measure, taking measurements.

A bad feeling rose up in me.

"Mom, what are you doing?"

Her hands didn't stop.

"Harper has so many clothes. We're clearing out your room to make her a walk-in closet."

"You won't be living here much longer anyway."

I was still wondering how she knew I was leaving when she went on.

"My friend Maggie Finch happens to be short on hands at her factory. Assembly-line work, three thousand a month, room and board included. You go work there, help out with the household."

Marvin stood in the doorway, confused.

"Mrs. Fox, Mia and I already agreed. If she's not going to college, she'll reapply."

"School's about to start. Is it even too late for her to take a summer job?"

"Reapply? Who said anything about reapplying?" Mom let out a cold laugh.

"Marvin, the private school Harper's in now costs over two hundred thousand a year in tuition alone. I can't put two children through school on my own."

"I raised her to eighteen. I've done my duty as a parent."

So it wasn't that she knew I was leaving. She was planning to throw me out.

She couldn't even wait a few days before clearing out my room.

Something roared in my head.

More than ten years of swallowed hurt broke loose all at once.

"Enough!"

"What gives you the right to run my life? I got into a good university and you wouldn't let me go, and now you want to take away my chance to reapply too?"

I screamed it at her, eyes burning red. It was the first time in my life I'd ever lost my temper with her.

Mom froze. She clearly hadn't expected me to talk back, but she quickly slipped back into that lofty air of hers.

"You've got no degree. What can you do besides the factory? This is a way out I pulled every string I had to find for you!"

"And you don't just fail to appreciate it, you lose your temper at me."

"What kind of daughter acts like this?"

Marvin stepped in fast to smooth things over.

"Mrs. Fox, Mia's grades are so good. It'd be a shame for her not to study."

"If she goes off to study, there's less left for Harper. Harper's been the apple of my eye her whole life. If she gets to Chicago and people look down on her, will you take responsibility for that?"

Marvin faltered, his eyes shifting between Harper and Mom.

After only a moment, he turned to me.

"Mia, Mrs. Fox has a point."

"Go take the job for now. I'm planning to come back after I graduate anyway. I'll take care of you then."

It was like being dropped into ice.

I'd known better than to count on him, and still it gave my heart a sharp twist.

I didn't say another word. I went back into my ransacked room and slammed the door shut with a bang.

From outside came Harper's startled shriek.

Then Mom and Marvin soothing her. No one spared a thought for me, one door away.

I leaned against the door. My phone screen lit up, and a message from Kayla James popped up at just that moment.

"When can you leave?"

"Anytime." Calmly I typed the one word and hit send.

The door flew open. Marvin's eyes swept across my phone screen.

He frowned. "What do you mean, anytime? Who are you talking to?"

I flipped my phone facedown and said it lightly.

"Just about the tutoring."

Marvin's eyes were complicated, and then the very first thing out of his mouth was a scolding.

"Mia, can't you stop throwing tantrums? Harper's grown up sheltered, she's never seen anything like this. You slamming that door just now scared her to death."

I looked at this boy I'd liked for six years, and all I felt was that he was a stranger.

"Marvin, is it that every single time something involves Harper, I'm the one who has to back down?"

"My mom does it. And so do you."

Guilt flickered across Marvin's face. He opened his mouth to explain.

Just then Harper stepped out from behind the door, tears rolling down in fat drops.

"It's all my fault... if it weren't for me, my sister wouldn't have to suffer like this. Marvin, don't blame her."

The guilt in Marvin's eyes gave way to tenderness for her, and then hardened into anger.

"Mia, can't you cut it out? Look, you've made Harper cry!"

His gaze swept across the desk and locked onto that bright red acceptance letter from the state university.

That letter was countless nights I'd stayed up, countless practice sets I'd ground through,

the one and only report card I had to show for more than ten years of study.

But in the next second, Marvin ripped it to shreds.

"Mia, I knew it. You've been picking fights lately because you still haven't given up on going to college."

"As long as that thing exists, no one's going to be happy."

"Now you don't have to think about it anymore, and we don't have to fight anymore."

"We can go back to how we used to be!"

A dull ache spread through my chest.

Before, every time I got hurt by my mom or Harper, he would say,

once I got into college, we'd leave this city and build a home of our own.

But now, he had no intention of taking me anywhere. Even my hope of leaving, he'd torn up like it was nothing.

Harper forgot to cry. My mother came running in too.

Seeing the scraps all over the floor, she let out a long breath.

"Just as well it's torn. She wasn't going to study anyway, so now she can put it out of her head."

"I already talked to Maggie Finch. Her son's driving over right now to take you to start at the factory, before you get any wilder over the break."

"Go on, pack your things."

Marvin reached out and patted my shoulder.

"Mia, it's okay. Even if you don't have a degree and you're working in a factory, I won't look down on you."

I didn't fight. I didn't cry or make a scene.

I just crouched down numbly and started gathering the few clothes I had left.

The light was fading. When I went to collect my toiletries, I passed Harper's half-open bedroom door.

"Marvin, you had me sneak Mia's acceptance letter out and put it on the deskso you could tear it up? That was the plan?"

"You scared me half to death just now. You know how she treasures that piece of paper. Why would you do that?"

Marvin's voice was low.

"Mia's been unhappy lately, and she keeps contacting that Mrs. James from the tutoring thing. She definitely hasn't given up on college."

"If I let her keep going like this, no telling what she might do to get tuition money."

"And the way she looks at you isn't right. She's got to be blaming you."

"Don't let her quiet act fool you. She's actually got a lot of scheming in her."

"You're too simple. You'd never be able to handle her."

"So it's better if I cut off her way out with my own hands."

"That way she can't pin it on you, and your hands stay clean."

"But what if she gets mad at you and never speaks to you again?" Harper couldn't believe it.

Marvin's tone was certain.

"She won't. She's always depended on me. Growing up, no one looked after her but me. A little sweet-talking and she'll come around."

Tears dropped onto the floor without a sound.

I didn't wipe them away.

Once the tears had run completely dry, I threw out the wishing stars Marvin had folded by hand, jar and all, into the trash.

Only after I'd packed everything did I notice Mrs. James had already replied.

"Someone's on the way to pick you up. The car will be downstairs any minute."

A black Porsche pulled up slowly below the building.

My mother pushed me out the door.

A young man in a bespoke suit stepped out of the car.

Tall, straight-backed, with a bearing that stood out.

He asked politely,

"Which of you is Miss Mia Fox? My mother sent me to pick her up."

My mother's eyes went wide, her whole face breaking into a smile.

She was about to introduce Harper to him when I cut in.

"That's me."

The man took the bag from my hand and opened the car door for me.

Only then did my mother shoot me a resentful glare.

Marvin looked at the Porsche, worry on his face, but in the end he still put on that air of doing me a favor.

"Mia, stay safe on the road. When the weekend break comes, I'll go visit you at the factory."

"My sister looks really upset. She's not going to run away from home, is she?"

Harper's eyes darted away. She always looked like that when she had something to hide.

But Marvin only scoffed.

"No. She's got no money left. Other than the factory, she's got nowhere to go."

I didn't bother with any of them and climbed into the passenger seat.

The instant the car door shut, my mother's phone rang.

Maggie Finch's voice came through.

"Mrs. Fox, so sorrymy son can't get away today."

"Picking up your daughter will have to wait a couple of days."

My mother's face went white.

Marvin's pupils shrank. He lunged and grabbed the car window.

"Mia!"