I Predicted Every Betrayal

Chapter 2 The Dinner She Gave Me

For the next few days, Vivian was as gentle as a preschool teacher whenever she was at home.

At dinner, she pushed her creamy seafood casserole toward me.

"You probably didn't get to eat things like this very often before. You can have mine too. I'll just eat salad."

A heaping platter of the same dish sat untouched in the middle of the table.

My mother smiled in approval. "I'm so glad to see you taking care of Nora like this."

Ethan traded his plate for Vivian's. "You haven't done anything wrong. Stop making sacrifices for everyone else."

I looked around the table. "Has the hotel group fallen on hard times?"

My father looked up.

"There's plenty left on the table, so why do you need to give me the food off your plates?"

"Nora." His knife struck the rim of his plate. "Your sister was trying to be nice, and that's how you speak to her?"

"I told you dairy gives me stomachaches."

Vivian's eyes reddened. "I'm sorry. I forgot. I only wanted you to try one of our family favorites."

My mother patted her hand, then said to me, "She meant well. You can scrape off the sauce."

I set down my napkin.

"No, thanks. I have crackers."

Vivian got to her feet too. "I'll make her something else. It doesn't matter if she scolds me again. I did take her place, after all."

My father pressed the call button for the kitchen. "Sit down. This is our family dinner table, and she doesn't get to throw a tantrum here. No one is to make her anything else."

I didn't argue. I went back to my room and opened a packet of crackers.

For the next two days, the table was once again loaded with dishes Vivian loved: creamy scrambled eggs and cheese casseroles. I lived on the saltines in my bag and even avoided getting water while they were eating.

On the third day, my paternal grandmother, Evelyn Hartwell, came for lunch. She saw me stuffing crackers into my pocket and asked whether the family chef had quit.

My father laughed as he explained, "Nora hasn't had much of an appetite lately."

"There's nothing wrong with my appetite," I said. "I just can't eat any of this."

Grandmother set down her cup and asked the chef to bring her a menu.

"All these employees, all this money," she said, looking at my father, "and the daughter you just brought home has to carry crackers in her pocket?"

My mother reached for the menu and flipped through two pages without finding a single dish she could use in her defense.

Ethan leaned back in his chair. "She could've asked for something herself."

I placed my phone on the table and opened the message I had sent in the family group chat on my first night there.

It listed exactly what I couldn't eat and what I liked.

The only responses were a selfie from Vivian and three heart emojis from everyone else.

That day, my mother finally had the kitchen cook me a separate piece of fish.

She also told me my transfer to St. Andrew's Preparatory School was official and that Vivian would take me to the school's charity auction.

"I'd like to attend a different event."

"Nora, stop expecting the worst all the time. With so many people at school, what could she possibly do to you?"

I looked at her, then nodded anyway.

On registration day, I found the teacher in charge of the auction and asked how long the school kept security footage from the backstage hallway.

She looked surprised.

"The donated items will be stored there. I'm worried something might happen."

She promised to save a separate backup. Only then did I sign the registration form.

At rehearsal three days later, I went to fetch a stack of folding chairs. When I returned, Blair Parker was searching through her makeup bag.

She had lost a diamond brooch that supposedly belonged to her grandmother.

Vivian turned toward me.

"Nora, everyone else was in the auditorium just now, but you stayed backstage. Did you happen to see it?"

I shook my head.

Then she added softly, "If you just thought it was pretty and wanted to borrow it, you could've asked."

The room went dead quiet.

"Is she some poor relative staying with the Hartwells?" someone whispered.

"I heard she was raised by some woman who worked at a laundry."

"No wonder she always carries that shabby bag. Has she ever even seen a diamond before?"

My identity had never been made public. My mother said Vivian needed time to adjust.

"I'm not a relative," I said. "I'm their biological daughter, the one who was switched at birth."

All the color drained from Vivian's face.

"Her birth mother switched us. I didn't steal her place, and I didn't steal that brooch."

"Shut up!"

Ethan was standing in the doorway. He had come to deliver auction items as a representative of the family foundation.

He strode over and slapped me across the face.

"Is this how you humiliate her at school? Nora, you make me sick."