The Daughter They Didn’t Want Won The Lottery Chapter 02
Next morning, before anyone was up, I walked to the lottery office downtown.
When the transfer hit and I saw the number on the screen, my fingers went white around the debit card. My breath went shallow.
Nineteen years, and I’d never held this much money. Never even let myself imagine it.
All my life, Mom’s line had been the same: store’s not doing well, we can’t afford it.
Chloe wanted new AirPods, new Nikes, a five-hundred-dollar skincare wand—Mom never hesitated to pull out her card.
I asked for a twenty-dollar prep book and got told to check the library.
Same house. Same last name. Two different lives.
Not anymore.
I didn’t buy a thing. Zipped the card into the inner pocket of my old tote and walked home like nothing had happened.
Mom was in the living room painting her nails.
“Where have you been? Chloe’s grad party’s at noon. Get down to the restaurant and help set up. Don’t just stand there.”
I was leaving soon. Until then, the last thing I needed was Mom realizing something had changed.
So I went.
The banquet hall already had the banner hung across the back wall—red and gold letters:
Congratulations Chloe Carter & Liam Bennett — Columbia University — Class of 2026!
Both families had gone all out. The place was loud, bright, packed.
I stood under that banner and looked up at those two names side by side, and my eyes stung.
My name should’ve been up there too.
If I hadn’t spent SAT morning throwing up on the bathroom floor.
Dad spotted me across the room. “Emma! Don’t just stand there—get the drinks on the tables!”
I rolled up my sleeves and started working like a hired server.
Mom and Dad drifted through the room, beaming.
“Chloe’s really something, isn’t she?”
“That girl was born for great things.”
“Columbia—you two must be so proud.”
Every voice tuned to Chloe. Nobody said my name.
Chloe stood beside Liam in a pink dress, the two of them accepting congratulations like homecoming king and queen.
They looked like they belonged together.
I stood in the back with a pitcher of iced tea, a stranger at somebody else’s party.
I’d been fooling myself all along. Liam had never really been mine—he and Chloe belonged in the same world. I didn’t.
I had no interest in being the third person in whatever this was.
So I took myself out of it.
I worked non-stop until the party was more than half over. Only then did Liam finally come over, something almost pained in his eyes.
“Em. Sit down. Eat something.”
Mom heard him from two tables away and didn’t even look up. “Don’t bother. She’s used to it. Good practice for the real world.”
Liam pressed his lips together. Said nothing. Walked back to the head table.
By the time the crowd thinned out I finally sat down and picked at whatever was cold on the buffet. Halfway through a bite my stomach twisted and I made for the bathroom.
I’d just latched the stall when two women walked in. One of them was Mom.
Aunt Diane’s voice, curious: “So you’re really letting Emma go to community college? What kind of job’s she gonna land with that?”