**Diary Entry**
Sophie carefully styled her hair, slipped into her finest dress, and spritzed on a touch of perfume before heading to her older sister Victoria’s birthday party. She carried a neat cake box, hoping it might soften the tension between them. Climbing to the fifth floor, she rang the bell twice. The door swung open, and Victoria—radiant in a new dressing gown, curls perfectly set—clapped her hands.
“Is that for me? I suppose you remembered my birthday, then?”
“Of course,” Sophie replied evenly, offering the box.
Victoria took it, lifted the lid, and peered inside. Her face flickered from delight to suspicion.
“Did you bake this yourself?”
“Well, yes,” Sophie answered with a hesitant smile.
“Really?” Victoria frowned, turning the box in her hands. “What’s in it?”
“Are we discussing ingredients, or shall we join the guests?” Sophie tried to deflect.
Too late. Victoria’s instincts were sharp—and rightly so. Three days ago, she’d called Sophie in tears.
“I broke a nail and argued with Oliver. No mood for anything! The cake’s off, the whole thing’s off!”
Sophie accepted it calmly and took an urgent order from a loyal client. But at noon today, Victoria called again.
“We made up! He gave me a gold bracelet! Be here by seven—and bring a cake!”
“You cancelled everything…” Sophie stammered.
“Don’t be difficult! You’re a baker—show me what you can do!”
Sophie tried explaining that a cake couldn’t be made in six hours, but Victoria insisted. Desperate, Sophie rang their mother.
“Is it really so hard to please your own sister?” was the only reply.
Realising no help would come, Sophie improvised—she bought an unsold cake from a small-time baker named Vera. It looked decent enough. The gesture mattered, didn’t it? But Victoria saw through it immediately.
“Vera, come here!” she called toward the kitchen.
Out stepped a long-haired brunette—Sophie recognised her instantly.
“Is this your cake?” Victoria asked coldly.
“Mine. She bought it off me. So, this is your famous baker sister?” Vera smirked.
Sophie froze. The guests fell silent. Victoria clenched her jaw, tore off the lid, scooped up cream with her finger—and smeared it across Sophie’s face.
“Eat this rubbish yourself!” she hissed. “Couldn’t even bother making something original. Get out!”
Sophie was shoved out the door; Vera followed, cursing loudly and flipping them off before storming away.
Outside, Sophie wiped her face with wet wipes and checked her phone—dozens of messages from their mother:
“Humiliating the family! Lying to your own sister! Have you no shame?”
She didn’t reply. Just locked the screen. But it wasn’t over.
By morning, Victoria’s social media post blew up: “Don’t trust even family—she brought a shop-bought cake and passed it off as hers. Pathetic.”
Sophie cried for hours. Then—she pulled herself together. Not for them. For herself. That day, she swore: no more cakes for family. No more kindness for those who’d trample it without thought.
And for the first time in years, she felt lighter. Because now, her life would only hold what was truly sweet—no fakes, no hypocrisy. And certainly none who called themselves family.
*Lesson learned: Some bonds are as fragile as a poorly baked cake. Better to save your best for those who won’t throw it back in your face.*
