Growing up, I was always the “black sheep” of the family. My sister, Sara, was the golden child in our parents’ eyes. She was the one who followed the rules, got straight A’s, and went out of her way not to cause any trouble.

Whereas I was the one who was curious and filled with questions. A trait that often led to me being in trouble. It constantly felt like I had to fight for my place in the family, and that made my childhood very difficult.

I really tried to be more like my sister, but it seemed the harder I worked at that, the worse things became. So in my teenage years, I decided to stop trying and just be myself. That had an even worse result.

But I never thought any of these things would play a role when it came to our inheritance. I couldn’t have been more wrong. When our mother passed away a couple of months ago, things took an unexpected turn.

I got a lawyer’s letter saying that Sara was named as the sole beneficiary of our mother’s estate. I would not be getting anything at all. This didn’t sit right with me, as our mother always said that we would share everything once she passed away.

So I confronted my sister, and she told me that since she’s the perfect child, it was her responsibility to take care of everything and to fulfil our mother’s wishes. I didn’t believe her, but I left things at that, not wanting to cause an argument about this.

A few weeks later, I got an unexpected message from one of my mom’s old friends. She told me that Sara had been manipulating our mom to get her to change the will behind my back. She was painting me as the irresponsible one and convinced my mom that I wouldn’t be able to handle the money.