Page 7 of Deranged Imposter

“I’m enforcing a boundary, Mom. Hardly controlling of me.”

Isa is always thankful when I get her out of sticky situations, primarily when it involves those boorish women in her lectures. She wants me to stop coddling her, to not be a protector at her beck and call—but the results, the rewards of her bashful smiles, are worth the talk of her being a sugar baby.

I give her gifts with no strings attached. I buy everything her pretty eyes land on, and it tears my heart when she says she doesn’t deserve them, that she hasn’t done enough to receive such an expensive gift.

After years of immersing into my life and the standard of living, Isa still struggles to detach from her penniless upbringing.

“She forgot to tell you. It happens. Don’t be angry at her,” my mother pleads softly with a chuckle.

A get-together is not a small thing, I want to say, but that’ll bring on more chastising.

“Which is why I’ll make sure she doesn’t do it again.” I nod, firm on my decision.

“It’s not lying by omission.” She does mumble something else after that, but it’s too quiet to be worth a coherent sentence.

“No difference to me.” I shrug apathetically, the suit constricting on the back of my shoulders.

“Like father, like son. Always have to be in the right.” She clicks her tongue and hums pensively.

“Well, she is in the wrong.”

My mother sides with Isa when she makes mistakes, but the favoritism has her simply cooing at Isa to be careful next time. Then she turns it around, deeming me the root of the said mistake.

“Alright, alright,” she voices in defeat and sips the glass of alcohol. “Keep it civil.”

“I never yell at her,” I reiterate, hating the tottered heartbeat at her accusation.

“You can be very unkind with your tone,” she professes, candid.

After casting me a warning look, she flounces away to find more people to converse with. I’ll confront her wrath later; I’m sick of seeing these prim and proper people. I want to spend my evening talking to Isa, who doesn’t mind her choice of words and bratty tone.

I climb to the second floor, hurrying down the hall and unlocking the door to my room.

A little box of memories cracks open. Idle moments, blissful happiness, and upsetting memories; the last fifteen years present like a poisonous red apple. Beautiful, yet rotten.

I watch Isa stare at the framed picture of me, her, and Zico—reminiscing the past before three became two and before redemption gave up on my unnerving fixation.

“You should be glad I love you so much.”

She squeals in shock, tossing her head to the side, and wheezes petulantly. I close the door behind me, completely muzzling the faint voices from below.

“What?” she asks, eyes flickering back to the photo for another look. “Did you say something?”

“Next time my mother plots against me, you are to ignore her.”

I don’t want Isa to get the wrong idea. I’m not searching for a partner when the one I want is right in front of me. Education is important to Isa; it’s why I’ve never made my intentions known.

It’s baffling how she doesn’t see the adoration I have for her.

She wants to make something of herself and succeed in a way she finds fulfillment. Isa finds passion in her degree and works hard to achieve it.

Her efforts are fighting against the drawbacks of not having a noteworthy family name.

“Mrs.—”

“Mom,” I interrupt her as I subtly put the photo face down on the desk. “That’s what you call her.”

Before her parents’ head-on collision car accident, after Zico’s disappearance on the day of September’s hailstorm, to now, when we only have each other—we’re a family.

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