Chapter 3 The Unseen Ghost
540 Words
My new existence within the Nelson household felt spectral, like a ghost haunting the edges of their lives.
It didn't take long for Samuel to arrange my transfer, placing Amelia and me in the same middle school, even the same class.
This arrangement, intended as kindness, became my own private ordeal.
Amelia was a natural-born star. Class president, perpetual top of the grade, an elegant dancer, an even better pianist—her gentle demeanor was always crowned with a polite, perfect smile.
Teachers and classmates orbited her like devoted planets.
I was her shadow, the stunted "sister" from years of malnutrition, the "new kid" languishing at the bottom of every class thanks to a five-year educational void.
Amelia would explain to her circle with practiced, delicate concern, "My sister has been through a lot. She's just really quiet and private. Best to give her space."
Her words, so thoughtful on the surface, expertly built an invisible wall around me.
The curiosity in my classmates' eyes cooled into a distant, pitying sort of respect.
No one spoke to me. No one asked me to play.
My only escape was drawing.
During those five lost years, a found stick and a patch of bare, packed dirt had been my sole toys.
I taught myself to draw in that tiny world—birds in the sky, imagined skyscrapers, the fading memory of Amanda's face. It was how I spoke to myself.
In art class, the assignment was "My Family".
I stared at the blank sheet, paralyzed.
I thought, 'Who is my family? The parents who see me as a catastrophe, or the "sister" who has flawlessly replaced me?'
Drawing them felt like a lie. Drawing just myself felt like surrender.
In the end, I drew a picture where no one smiled.
A skinny girl sat alone before a heavy, shut door, its other side a mystery.
At her feet lay a broken plate.
The sky held neither sun nor moon, only a single gray bird flying away, never looking back.
I gave the drawing no title. I handed it in and forgot about it.
*****
A month later, without my knowledge, the art teacher entered it in a city-wide youth competition.
No one told me—not the teacher, not the family.
I assumed it had vanished like all my drawings in the dirt, erased by the next gust of wind.
Until the day Amelia cornered me after school.
Her usual composure was gone, replaced by a flushed, anxious anger.
"Jessica, come with me!" she demanded, her grip tight on my wrist as she pulled me to the secluded woods behind the school.
She shoved me away, yanked a framed picture from her backpack, and hurled it at my face.
The corner stung my cheek.
Picking it up, I saw my drawing. But now, in the bottom right corner, gleamed a gold stamp—First Place.
My heart stuttered.
A tiny, fragile spark—hope—ignited in the dead ashes of my chest.
I wondered, 'Had they seen it? Did Mom and Dad see I won? Could this... could this change anything?'
Clutching the frame, I looked up at Amelia, my voice a hesitant, almost pleading whisper. "What... what did Mom say?"
- Writer
