Something deep inside me cracked at that moment, and tears spilled down my cheeks as my anger flared up.
“Why does he get dessert when we cannot even have decent food?” I screamed.
Mom’s face was engulfed in such a sudden fury that I instantly stopped crying out of pure shock.
“Never say that about Gabriel again, and never make me hear it ever again,” Mom snapped sternly.
She left through the back door with the pie, leaving me alone in our dim kitchen, feeling ashamed, furious, and entirely certain that Gabriel had replaced me in her heart.
After that terrible afternoon, I hated him with the intense focus only a heartbroken child can manage.
Whenever I walked past the dump after school, Gabriel tried waving at me to show friendliness.
Once, he carved me a small wooden songbird and offered it to me with a shy smile.
I deliberately dropped the wooden bird beside his worn shoes and kept my head held high.
