The Price of Admission Chapter 1

The year I graduated high school, I watched my sister, Jane, steal my acceptance letter to Harvard. She replaced it with her own letter from the local community college.

I saw her do it. And I did nothing.

I let her forge the documents. I let her and my parents celebrate.

Because in my last life, I didn't. In my last life, I screamed. I exposed her lie.

My reward was a beating from my parents.

"You're the older sister! Why can't you let her have this? All she wants is a good future, and you have to snatch it away?" My father's words, as he ripped my letter from my hands and gave it back to her.

My mother was worse. "You're too good for community college, is that it? Fine! You don't have to go anywhere!"

She tied my hands and feet with a rope. She sold me to Old Man Hawkins, the crippled widower on the edge of the county, to be his wife.

Hawkins locked me in his root cellar. He wanted a son.

I endured his torment until I couldn't. I threw myself in the river and ended my life.

Only as I was dying did I learn the truth. Why, if we were sisters, did they treat me this way?

It turned out I wasn't their daughter at all.

And because I wasn't their blood, I was treated like livestock.

Heh. Thank God for second chances. The people who humiliated me, who broke me... they won't get off so easy this time.

* * *

"June! Good news! The mailman came, our letters are here! This one's yours."

My sister, Jane, handed me an envelope with a saccharine smile. I opened it.

"Ms. June Miller, you have been accepted into our General Education program..."

The letterhead was from some obscure state teacher's college.

My parents, hearing the commotion, rushed over.

"Well, you actually got in?" my dad said. "Let me be clear. We're poor. We can't afford two college tuitions. If your school isn't as good as your sister's, you're not going."

They immediately turned to Jane. "Janie, where did you get in?"

Jane proudly held up her letter. The crimson seal of Harvard University was impossible to miss.

She shouted, "I got into Harvard! I'm going to Harvard!"

"I must be the top of our county! No, the whole state!"

"Praise the Lord! We've got a golden goose in the Miller family!" My parents were ecstatic.

My mother jabbed my father in the ribs.

"Earl, what are you waiting for? Get the savings jar. We're going to the department store in town to get our girl some new clothes!"

Before he was out the door, she yelled again, "And get the good polyester, Earl! She's going to the big city! We can't have her looking like trailer trash!"

It wasn't just clothes. My mother made plans to slaughter our only hog for a huge "send-off" party for Jane.

In her excitement, my mother finally noticed me.

She twisted my ear, hard. "And you. All day, lazy, not doing your chores, hiding in the barn with those scraps of paper. And for what? A crappy little diploma? We wasted good pencils on you!"

My ear felt like it was tearing off, but I didn't fight back. This was my normal.

I walked over to my sister. "Jane," I asked, "can I see your letter?"

She snatched it away. "No way! What if you get jealous and rip it up?"

She looked me up and down, a smug little sneer on her face.

"You know, out of everyone in our class, you studied the hardest. Reading by that kerosene lamp all night, getting soot all over your face. I bet your spit is black!

"And after all that, you still did worse than me. If I were you, sis, I'd be so embarrassed I'd just die."

Her words made me cough. She was right about one thing. My lungs were probably ruined from the fumes.

I had given everything to get out. And this was the result.