Chapter 2: Cold Breakfast and Warm Footbaths

The next morning, the house smelled of fried oil and burnt toast.

I had risen at dawn, before the pale sun even cleared the pine trees at the edge of our lawn. In the past, my routine was rigid and unforgiving: wake up at 5:30 AM, scrub the kitchen counters, brew fresh Colombian roast for my father, squeeze fresh Valencia oranges for my mother, and fry two eggs over-easy for Julian, seasoned with precisely three twists of black pepper and a pinch of pink Himalayan sea salt. If the yolk was broken or the white was slightly browned around the rim, Julian would push the plate to the edge of the granite counter and stare at me with disgusted, watery eyes until my mother forced me to throw it out and start over.

At 7:15 AM, the sound of velvet slippers shuffled down the oak staircase.

Julian walked into the kitchen wearing a silk navy pajama set that had cost three hundred dollars at a boutique in the mall—a gift my parents had bought him two days ago to console him after his disastrous test results. His face was pale, his eyes puffy, but his lips were curled into that familiar, languid smirk of someone who had never in his life been told the word *no*.

He dropped onto a barstool, yawned loudly, and poked the edge of the plate sitting on the counter.

"Adrian," he whined, his voice nasal and grating. "What the hell is this? The yolk is set. You know I only eat soft-poached or runny over-easy. And where is the sourdough? You know rye makes my stomach bloated."

In the past, I would have swallowed my pride, lowered my head, and offered an immediate apology. I would have quietly taken the plate, scraped the food into the disposal, and fried two fresh eggs while Julian scrolled through Instagram on his brand-new iPhone 16 Pro Max.

Instead, I walked over to the counter, picked up the ceramic plate, and dumped the entire breakfast—eggs, toast, and bacon—straight into the trash bin beside the sink.

The heavy ceramic lid snapped shut with a sharp *clack*.

"If you don't like it," I said calmly, looking him dead in the eye, "don't eat it."

Julian's mouth fell open. He stared at me as though I had suddenly grown a second head. For three full seconds, complete silence hung over the kitchen. Julian was not used to resistance; in his world, I was an appliance, as reliable and obedient as the microwave.

Then, the performance began.

His chest began to heave with exaggerated, theatrical gasps. He clutched at the lapels of his silk pajamas, stumbled backward off the barstool, and collapsed onto the living room sofa with a dramatic groan.

"Mom! Dad!" Julian wheezed, his voice choked with feigned agony. "My chest... my chest hurts! He's yelling at me!"

The reaction from the second floor was instantaneous. Heavy thuds pounded across the ceiling, followed by the frantic scramble of footsteps on the stairs. My mother, Karen, practically flew into the living room in her dressing gown, her face pale with terror. My father, Caspian, followed right behind her, adjusting his reading glasses with a furious scowl.

"Julian! Baby!" Karen shrieked, dropping to her knees beside the couch and cradling his head against her chest. "Breathe, sweetheart, breathe! Caspian, get his inhaler!"

"I'm fine... I'm trying," Julian gasped, peering over Karen's shoulder to shoot me a venomous, triumphant glare. "Adrian threw the food away... he yelled at me... he told me I was useless..."

Caspian whirled around, his face turning an angry, mottled shade of crimson. "What the hell is wrong with you, Adrian?" he bellowed, his voice rattling the glass cabinet in the dining room. "You know your brother has had respiratory and cardiac sensitivities since the day he was born! Are you deliberately trying to trigger an attack?"

It had been the prevailing gospel of the Lockwood family since the day we were brought home from the hospital. I had been born four minutes before Julian. Because Julian had required an incubator for forty-eight hours while I had been robust and healthy, my parents had constructed a bizarre, twisted narrative: in their minds, I had somehow "stolen" Julian's nutrients in the womb. Every illness, every fever, every academic shortcoming Julian suffered throughout his childhood was subtly framed as my fault.

"He didn't want the breakfast," I said evenly. "So I threw it out."

"Go stand in the corner!" Karen screamed, her voice cracking with pure hatred. "Look at your brother shivering! You have no heart! You're selfish, cruel, and ungrateful! Get out of my sight before I call an ambulance!"

Without a word, Caspian scooped Julian up in his arms, and the two of them rushed out the front door toward the garage, their car tires screeching down the driveway toward the emergency clinic.

They left me alone in the empty house.

The silence that followed was sublime. I walked back to the kitchen, poured myself a tall glass of cold water, and sat down at the dining table. I didn't stand in the corner. I didn't cry. For eighteen years, their rage had felt like a crushing physical weight; today, knowing that my application to Westbridge was locked in granite, their anger felt as harmless as autumn leaves blowing across a highway.

I spent the next three weeks operating like a ghost. I picked up extra shifts at the freight depot, worked sixteen-hour weekend schedules, and kept my earnings hidden in a second bank account I had opened under my own name at an independent credit union across town.

Then came the night of the footbath.

It was a Tuesday evening. I had just returned from a long shift moving pallets of canned goods, my back aching and my clothes smelling of cardboard and dust. As I stepped through the front foyer, I heard voices murmuring in the living room.

"...I saw him outside the Grand Horizon Hotel downtown," Julian's voice purred with malicious delight. "He was getting into a red sports car driven by some older woman. He told me college was a waste of time and that he'd found someone who would pay for all his expenses if he just did whatever she asked."

A loud crash shattered the sentence. My father had hurled his porcelain coffee mug into the stone fireplace, shattering it into a dozen jagged shards.

"Disgraceful!" Caspian roared. "An absolute degenerate! We raised a street hustler under our own roof!"

I stepped into the archway of the living room. Both my parents turned on me with faces contorted in disgust. Julian was lounging in the leather armchair, wearing a plush bathrobe, a smug, feline smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

"Dad," I began, "I was at the freight terminal on Fourth Street—"

"Shut your mouth!" Caspian bellowed, pointing a trembling finger at the floor in front of Julian. "You will not speak another lie in this house! You have humiliated this family, you have neglected your brother, and you walk around here like your high grades make you better than everyone else!"

He turned to the hallway closet, pulled out a plastic washbasin, and shoved it into my chest.

"Fill this with warm water and Epsom salts," Caspian ordered, his voice low and vicious. "You are going to wash your brother's feet. You are going to massage his ankles until he falls asleep, and you are going to apologize for every insult you have inflicted on him this week. If you refuse, I will pack your clothes into a garbage bag and throw you out onto the street tonight."

Julian leaned back into the leather cushions, crossing his legs and watching me with glistening, eager eyes. He wanted me to yell. He wanted me to storm out so he could convince our parents to cut me off completely.

I looked at Caspian's furious face, then at Karen's cold, judgmental stare.

*Patience,* I told myself. *The acceptance letters go out next week. Just five more days.*

"Fine," I said quietly.

I took the basin to the bathroom, filled it with warm water, and carried it back to the living room. I set it down on the carpet and knelt on one knee before Julian.

Julian slowly dipped his bare feet into the water with a contented sigh. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees, his face coming within inches of mine. His voice dropped to a barely audible, venomous whisper that our parents, watching from the kitchen, couldn't hear.

"Did you really think you were going to escape me, Adrian?" Julian whispered, his lips curling into a triumphant grin. "I saw how hard you studied. I saw you reading those fancy Ivy League brochures under your covers. But guess what? I had Mom and Dad change your application. You're coming to Riverdale Community College with me."

He chuckled softly, a wet, repulsive sound. "You're going to carry my books. You're going to write my papers. You're going to pick up my takeout in the rain. All those straight A's, all those advanced courses... and you're still going to spend the next four years serving me. Because that's all you're good for."

I didn't blink. I didn't clench my fists. I reached into the water, washed his feet with a clean towel, and dried them without uttering a single syllable.

When I finished, I emptied the basin into the sink, walked down the narrow hallway to the cramped storage closet under the stairs that served as my bedroom, and locked the door behind me.

Julian had the twenty-by-twenty master bedroom with an en-suite marble bath. I had a cot wedge between an old water heater and boxes of discarded Christmas ornaments.

I lay down on the thin mattress, looked up at the exposed pipes on the ceiling, and smiled.

Julian thought he had tied an anchor around my neck. He had no idea that in less than a week, the ship was going to sail without him.