Chapter 473: Never Been Born
Snapping my fingers, the space around us changed. We were now standing in a different house, covered in wallpaper from the 1980s with a dull red carpet and the smell of mold and mildew all around it.
Sitting at a desk in front of a window sat a girl, roughly around the same age as the wishing girl.
"Who’s that?" I asked, not really caring about the answer.
"Sheila," came the response. "She’s one year younger than me."
The girl looked like the perfect student. In fact, she looked so perfect that it made me throw up a little in my mouth. No one was like that at home unless they were forced to be. The ponytail in her hair was slicked back so hard that it had to be giving her a headache, but still, she sat upright at her desk, reading from a textbook.
Suddenly, a man looking a lot less than perfect stormed into the room. He looked familiar, like the man who was beating the ghost beside me in the warehouse. "Father," smiled the girl at the desk stiffly. Leaning down, she pulled a piece of paper out of her backpack. "I scored 110%. I was able to get the bonus question at the end of the test right."
However, the man didn’t even glance at the paper. Instead, he stalked over to where she was sitting and abruptly pulled her to her feet using her upper arm.
"You think you’re so smart, huh?" he sneered, his voice like nails on a chalkboard. "Then why did your brother fail that same test? You two are in the same class. Why didn’t you put his name on your test? Girls are only good for fucking and taking care of the kids. No man will want to marry you if you are too smart."
The girl’s smile faltered, and even the ghost beside me stepped back. "She used to be the perfect one," she muttered, watching her sister and father interact. "I don’t understand. She used to do no wrong. And her marks were never that good."
"Isn’t it obvious?" I asked, rolling my eyes. Seriously, how could the girl be so smart and so dumb all at the same time?
The scene in front of us shifted until we were in the middle of a kitchen. It was nice and homey, I guessed, but it looked nothing like my place back in O City. I guess everyone has their own idea of what home is.