Take Your Love, I'll Take the Fortune

"All the relatives knew I had a "backward cousin."For my birthday, she gave me a grocery-store pound cake.When I ran a marathon, she presented me with a pair of worn-out canvas sneakers.At my graduate school acceptance party, she even sent a funeral wreath of white lilies with a sash that read "In Sympathy," wishing me an early departure to the afterlife.In my previous life, I slapped her so hard she tumbled down the porch steps.My brother took her side and plotted revenge, falsely reporting to the university that I had cheated on my SATs. My admission was revoked."You're so modern. You know how things work," he sneered. "Plenty of people take a gap year. Just apply again."My father also defended her, cutting off all my financial support."You've had so much schooling. You're so educated," he said coldly. "Support yourself."Alone in a city eighteen hundred miles from home, I fought to survive. I called my brother and my father again and again—only to be blocked.I delivered food while renting a room and studying to reapply.At my lowest, my hands were raw and cracked from frostbite, scrambling for delivery shifts at four in the morning just to earn a small bonus.Worn down by the cold and exhaustion, I suffered cardiac arrest at twenty-three and collapsed in a snowdrift in that unfamiliar city. No one ever came to claim me.This time, I chose to let it go and accepted the wreath with a gracious smile.To fully integrate myself into this family.After all, what is a moment of pride compared to a lifetime's inheritance?"