Doubted as a Fake, I Left Them Behind

1: 1

My sister loved to live stream, teaching her viewers how to tell a real person apart from a fake.

When we stepped into the elevator, I didn't turn to face the doors. I chose to stand looking at my fianc instead.

That set her off. She turned to her stream.

See that, ladies? A normal person turns around when they get in an elevator. She didn't!

"You tell me. Isn't there something off about her?"

But they didn't know.

After I developed my emotional-expression disorder, I became terrified of people.

The only face I could bring myself to look at was the one most familiar to me.

To prove her theory, my sister locked me in the freezer again.

A test to see whether I'd break down and cry like a human being.

But even shivering in the cold, my face gave nothing away. I only called out, flat and mechanical.

"Open the door. Let me out. I'm cold."

Their voices came from the other side.

"See, Piers Gilbert? My sister really is a fake. She can't cry, she can't laugh, she doesn't have the feelings a normal person has. How could you ever be happy married to her?"

Piers let out a heavy breath.

"I've noticed that too. She's so dull. Not like you, so lively and full of life"

I dragged a bleak smile across my face.

And cried, for the first time in a long while.

Fine, then. I'd set Piers free to go find someone interesting to spend his life with.

"But your sister did save my life, after all. A person can't just have no conscience about that."

The regret of a man who wanted something he couldn't have filled his voice.

"Ah, well. I'll make do."

"Peggy Pruitt, I really wish it had been you who saved me. In the next life, I hope it's you."

However cold that cellar was in that moment,

it couldn't touch the cold that had already frozen my heart through.

So it turned out that all of it, the umbrella he held over me in the rain, the shade he found for me under the sun,

walking me back to my dorm every night after evening study without a word,

being the first to step forward whenever he saw someone pushing me around,

none of it was love.

It was the debt of that one time I'd saved his life.

Back then.

He'd been reckless, throwing his weight around.

A pack of small-time thugs came looking for trouble, and in a dim alley they beat him half to death.

I was the one who rushed in to shield him.

"Go, get out of here. They've got nothing against me, they won't touch me. Go call the police."

The thirty minutes waiting for the police to come were agony.

The thugs cornered me.

Their leering eyes crawled over me.

"So you wanted to play the hero and save your man? Then don't blame us for what comes next!"

They tore at my clothes, their filthy hands landing on every inch of my skin.

Just as they were about to go further, the police finally arrived and pinned them down.

And after that day, I was left with the emotional-expression disorder.

I couldn't cry. I couldn't laugh.

Even getting a sentence out took everything I had.

Piers asked me again and again what was wrong.

But the moment I tried to speak, that night played back in my head, over and over.

The vile words, the hands reaching for me with no shame at all, replaying in front of my eyes.

The words stuck in my throat. I stammered, and could never get a whole sentence out.

After enough times, he lost his patience and stopped caring.

He simply decided I was born dull, cold by nature.

My thoughts came back to the present.

I couldn't hold on any longer. Everything went black, and I dropped straight onto the freezing floor.

When I opened my eyes again, two days had passed.

Seeing that I was awake,

my sister Peggy hurried to my bedside.

Her eyes were red, brimming with tears that trembled but wouldn't fall.

"I'm sorry, sis. I didn't mean to freeze you until you passed out."

"I just thought you were like a fake person, no joy or anger or sorrow, so I wanted to try, to see if I could force some kind of feeling out of you."

"I only meant to shut you in for a little while. How was I supposed to know your body was so weak that you'd faint right away"

2: 2

I looked down at her, my eyes moving over that pretty face and the hint of skin at her chest, and the corner of my mouth twitched.

"Are you really apologizing?"

It sounded like an apology, but every word pushed the blame onto me.

As if the whole thing came down to me being too fragile, too strange.

Before our parents died, they told me the same thing over and over.

"An older sister is like a mother, Ivy. You have to be good to Peggy."

So I dropped out of school early.

Every dollar I earned went first to keeping her in school.

Pretty little dresses, the newest phone, whatever she wanted, I did my best to give her.

I thought a true heart would earn a true heart back.

But she didn't have one.

Just because my face showed nothing.

She called me a fake, a person with no soul.

She even followed me, filmed me in secret, posted me online for strangers to laugh at.

Let them mock me, guess at me, treat me like their afternoon entertainment.

The memories surfaced one after another, and something cold spread through me.

"Ivy, don't be angry. I brought you a present."

Peggy's sweet little voice pulled me back to the moment.

She held out a Hello Kitty plush, smiling.

"You know how hard Piers and I worked for this? We nearly talked ourselves hoarse to win it back for you. See? I'm good to you, aren't I?"

I stared at the toy, shaking with anger.

I'd heard the mall ran a couples' kissing contest yesterday, and the winners took home this plush.

I never imagined the two of them had been the champions.

"That toy's filthy. I don't want it."

Teeth clenched, I knocked her hand away, hard.

Her pretty face went pale, mist rising in her big eyes, and she looked to Piers for help.

"Piers, did I do something wrong again..."

He pulled her into his arms and soothed her gently.

"It's not your fault. Her heart's the dirty one. Everything looks filthy to her."

Then he turned to me, out of patience.

"Ivy, what's your problem? We did all this just to make you happy."

A nameless anger rose in me, burning through everything inside until it hurt.

On dates he took me to the French place I liked, then ordered the dishes Peggy liked.

The couple's outfit he bought me was a size too small, and in the end Peggy wore it.

I shook my head.

I had no heart left to argue with them.

If the two of them had been carrying on behind my back all along, then fine, let them have each other.

I pulled the blanket back over me.

And messaged my friend abroad.

"You were right. I should go abroad for treatment."

"Not just the disorder. This broken heart too..."

There was a top physician overseas who specialized in emotional-expression disorders.

I planned to leave in three days for treatment, and never come back.

That afternoon.

Peggy and Piers brought the fruit I liked.

I pressed the screen dark.

I meant to sleep properly.

But Piers cut it short.

He yanked the blanket off me and laid into me without mercy.

"Ivy, you really are no fun. Even when you're angry, your face is still dead as a corpse."

"Being with you is exhausting."

He rubbed the space between his brows.

Looking at me, worn out.

But I didn't want to be this way either.

I dragged out the ugliest smile.

"If it's exhausting, then let go."

His lips parted, like he was about to agree.

Then a doctor cut in out of nowhere.

Holding my report, the doctor spoke with weight.

"The patient is confirmed with an emotional-expression disorder. It's very hard for her to show what she feels. You should care for her more, help her out of this dark place..."

3: 3

At my words, Piers and Peggy both froze, their faces blank with shock.

"An emotional-expression disorder? How could"

The hardness went out of Piers.

He pulled me into his arms, his whole face soft with pity.

His voice carried guilt.

"Ivy, I'm sorry. I was too slow, I never noticed you were sick, I let you suffer for nothing"

"Give me another chance. I'll treat you right, I promise."

I sat there in the embrace I hadn't felt in so long.

But I couldn't feel any warmth from it anymore.

There was nothing left inside me but barren ground.

Every wound had already been dealt, and finding out now was simply too late.

Over the next few days in the hospital, Piers barely left my side.

Every day he brought slow-simmered chicken soup, carefully peeled apples for me, cut them into small pieces, arranged them on the tray.

Now and then he brought fresh flowers, just to coax a smile out of me.

"Ivy, don't worry. I'll get you better, I swear"

More than once, I nearly wavered.

But forgiveness isn't the work of a single moment.

Every time I pictured him and Peggy kissing to win that prize.

I felt sick to my stomach.

Every time I remembered him saying he wished it had been Peggy who saved him, the cold went straight through me.

That night.

I turned over and over, unable to sleep.

Then the door was kicked open.

A pack of strange men swarmed in.

In the dark I tried to call out for Piers, but a rough, heavy hand clamped over my mouth.

"Miss Pruitt, we hear you're like some fake person. So on a bed, will you still roll your eyes back and lose it like a real human?"

Terror swallowed me whole.

The unbearable images from years ago surfaced again in my mind.

I fought with everything I had.

But the difference in strength was too great, and I couldn't break free no matter what.

"Cry, Miss Pruitt. Cry and I'll let you go!"

But even when I wet the hospital pants, losing control of my bladder.

I still couldn't cry.

At the edge of despair.

I wanted to throw myself against the wall and end it.

Just then, with a sharp click, the room's overhead light snapped on.

Piers and Peggy stood side by side in the doorway.

The girl pointed at the wet leg of my pants, laughing so hard she was shaking all over.

"Sis, you finally wet yourself from fright. Looks like my method really worked."

"Soon you'll be just like a normal human. Hee hee."

Piers nodded along.

"That's right, Ivy. You finally reacted. Looks like all our effort wasn't wasted!"

In that moment I forgot to breathe.

I stared at the two of them, unable to believe it.

So this whole terror had been nothing but a farce the two of them had carefully staged.

Feeling how dead my gaze was.

Peggy stepped forward, still smiling, and added,

"Sis, I know you carry trauma inside. I did all this to help you get desensitized."

"Only by facing your fear head-on can you beat the shadow in your heart"

Piers spoke again.

Perfectly earnest.

"See how good Peggy is to you? Hurry up and thank her."

Everything I'd held down for so long shattered at those words.

I opened my cracked lips and screamed with everything in me.

"For my own good? Deliberately re-creating that nightmare, tearing open a wound that never healedthis is what you two call for my own good?"

Neither of them faced my anger, and neither felt the slightest guilt.

Peggy clapped her hands, excitement dancing across her face.

"Wonderful! Sis, you finally learned to get angry! You finally don't seem like a fake person anymore!"

I was shaking with rage.

Without a moment's hesitation, I swung my hand back and slapped Peggy hard across the face.

The crack of it rang out loud and clean.

The girl's head snapped to the side, and five red finger marks flared up at once on her pale cheek.

4: 4

"Sis, I only wanted to help you. Why did you hit me?"

Piers shoved me aside and tucked Peggy behind him.

"Are you insane? Peggy is your own sister!"

"Ivy Pruitt, you get more impossible by the day."

A few short years.

That was all it took for me to go from his precious flower to the madwoman, the poison, in his mouth.

I stumbled back a few steps.

Tears of regret fell.

If I could, I truly wished I had never saved him.

"What are you crying for? We never touched you!"

Once, Piers would have wiped my tears away like they were something precious.

Not now.

My tears couldn't reach his heart anymore.

"It's nothing. I just think it's pathetic."

"Tomorrow is our wedding. You two should go get ready."

Tomorrow was also, as it happened, the day I was leaving the country.

Only by sending them off could I slip away without trouble.

Piers said nothing.

He looked at me, his face uneasy.

He seemed to wrestle with it for a long while before he finally forced the words out.

"That's right, tomorrow's our wedding, yours and mine. But you've been in a bad way these past couple of days, you can't even manage a smile. If the guests see that, they'll only think you were forced into it"

My tone stayed flat.

"So?"

He drew a heavy breath.

"Ivy, it's fine if you can't smile."

"Peggy looks like you. Let her stand in for you and go through the ceremony. No one will notice."

I had already given up on him.

And yet, hearing something this absurd,

my heart still tore open, raw and stinging.

Fine.

I wasn't planning to be at the wedding anyway.

If he wanted Peggy in my place that badly, then let them have what they wanted.

"All right. I understand."

The moment they heard my answer, the two of them broke into thrilled smiles.

They started sorting out the order of the ceremony.

And going out to buy the rings and the wedding clothes.

"Ivy, so you can rest, I'll just take Peggy with me to the mall to look at rings. Your fingers are the same size anyway"

Piers finished and turned to leave.

Peggy skipped along behind him.

The two of them close and easy, like a real couple.

Leaving me standing there like a clown someone had thrown away.

All through the night,

neither of them asked what I thought.

As if the wedding gown really had been made to Peggy's measurements.

And the wedding too

Early the next morning,

with heavy dark circles under my eyes, I packed my bags.

I walked out of the hospital.

Outside, the big commercial screen was broadcasting their wedding live.

On a raised platform paved with flowers.

Peggy stood at the center of the blooms in a diamond-studded wedding gown.

An even larger jeweled necklace at her throat.

And Piers, ring in hand, was down on one knee.

"Peggy, does this count as me marrying you once too?"

His eyes were red.

As if he thought their wedding had been won against all odds.

The last time I saw him cry like that was before the SATs, when I fell sick and got hurt.

Looking at my wounds, he'd sworn through blurred eyes to protect me, to love me for the rest of his life.

But nothing stays, and everything ends.

The figure standing there now could no longer line up with the shy boy in my memory.

Brilliant lights ringed the two of them in a halo.

The click of cameras mixed with cheers loud enough to lift the roof.

Like a tsunami closing over me.

I should have been heartbroken.

But I wasn't.

There was only a kind of relief, that it had all turned out just as I thought.

I looked at them one last time.

Then I took a cab to the airport.

On the way, Piers sent me a message.

"The wedding's almost over. Wait for me at the hospital like a good girl. I'll come pick you up."

I left him one line.

"Piers, let's break up. I hope you marry the girl you love."

Then I blocked his number and deleted him.

Once I was on the plane,

my heart slowly settled.

The roar of the engines filled my ears, and at last I was leaving the city that had trapped me for years.

I had loved here, deep in my bones, and I had hurt here until it tore me apart. Now all of it would scatter on the wind