Ripping Off Their Mask

Then Aunt Mary shut off my phone in front of everyone.

I let out a cold laugh.

"This concerns Leslie’s future, Aunt Mary!"

She burst into laughter.

"Leslie is a top designer! What does her future have to do with a grunt worker like you? You never tell the family what you do. And let’s be honest, isn’t it because your salary is embarrassingly low? You’re too ashamed to talk about it, aren’t you?

"The truth is, we all know—you’re just a regular office drone making three thousand a month. Stop pretending to be busy. It only makes you look ridiculous!"

Sensing my anger, my mom quickly stepped in to mediate. "Don’t say that, Mary. Allison wouldn’t be working on a holiday if it weren’t urgent.

“Please, return her phone. And Ben, plug the internet cable back in—everyone's waiting to use it."

She spoke gently, but that one sentence sent Ben into a meltdown.

He jabbed a finger at my mom and me, stomped his feet, and burst into loud, wailing sobs.

Distressed, Aunt Mary turned on my mom, scolding her for bullying a child.

Seeing Ben cry, Grandma grabbed a pair of scissors and marched toward the router, ready to cut the internet cable.

The room descended into chaos.

I checked the time. Eight minutes left.

Leslie, your job might just be ruined by your mother and brother.

…

Speaking of pretending, no one in our family could put on a better act than Leslie.

She graduated from a vocational college but told the family she had a university degree.

She worked as a designer at a small firm but claimed she was working at a top-100 company, earning 400,000 a year.

One lie always needed countless more to cover it up.

Blinded by pride, she took out a 150,000 loan—despite making only 4,500 a month—just to give the money to her mother as a supposed year-end bonus.

For over a month, Aunt Mary flaunted it in the family group chat, constantly comparing us—praising Leslie while belittling me.

And every time Aunt Mary bragged about her, Leslie would send out monetary tokens in the chat to maintain the illusion of wealth.

She was suffering just to keep up appearances.

But I sympathized with her.

Aunt Mary was very vain and materialistic. She always treated her son better than her daughter. So Leslie had been forced into this charade.

Back when Leslie was still honest, life had been unbearable for her.

One moment remained especially vivid in my memory.

In fifth grade, Leslie scored a 69 on her final exam.

That same year, I scored a 99.

The second Aunt Mary saw her test paper, she didn’t say a word and slapped Leslie twice across the face.

Stunned, humiliated, and too afraid to cry, Leslie just stood there, dazed.

But that wasn’t the worst of it.

Aunt Mary yanked her by the ear and kicked her relentlessly. She forced Leslie to sit out in the snow, clutching that failed exam paper, and refused to give her food.

Whenever someone passed by, Aunt Mary would humiliate Leslie by telling them that her daughter was worthless and incapable of doing well in her exams.

Leslie had once been an outgoing child, but after years of beatings and verbal abuse, she became withdrawn and sullen.

From that moment on, she learned to alter her grades—bringing home only perfect scores.

With her limited education, Aunt Mary was easy to fool.

The sight of a flawless report card softened her attitude. She even bought gifts and showered Leslie with exaggerated praise in front of others.

Leslie became trapped in her mother’s delusions, convincing herself that she was a genius.

Day after day, year after year, Leslie built a fragile world of self-deception—one so precarious that reality itself became unbearable.

And when she stood before me, the one person who knew the truth, she begged me not to expose her lies.

"If you ever tell anyone," she whispered, "I’ll end my life."