The Sister He Stole

I tried to end it. Jumped.

Didn't die, though. Just shattered my body into a living statue.

Dr. Elliotts voice is sharp, cutting through the haze. This girl isn't in a coma because of the trauma. She severed her own will to survive. She doesn't want to wake up.

Dr. Elliott says Im a vegetable. Says I cant do anything but breathe.

Hes wrong.

I can hear.

I hear every beep of the monitor, every squeak of a sneaker on the linoleum.

I hear Kenneth and Theresathe parents who looked at me with such disgustsobbing in the corner.

I hear Sebastian, the brother who called me a thief, whispering his confessions.

I even hear Dawson. My ex-fianc. The man who called off our wedding. Hes begging me to open my eyes.

Too little. Too late.

Im the fake daughter. The counterfeit.

I paid my debt to you people with my life.

Why aren't you happy?

Chapter 1

Imprisoned.

Thats what I am. Trapped inside a useless meat sack on a hospital bed.

My lungs inflate. Deflate. That is the extent of my existence.

The fall didnt kill me, but it locked me in. A vegetative state, they call it. But my mind is awake. My ears are wide open.

Most of the time, the room is suffocatingly quiet. Just the rhythmic hiss-click of the ventilator and the sterile footsteps of nurses doing their rounds.

Only one visitor has actually come close to the bed.

Diana.

The girl who has my life.

I used to be the princess of the Chen family. Now? That title belongs to her.

Ive been rebranded. Replaced.

I am just Juliette Zheng now.

Because she is the real deal. The biological daughter. The one stolen at birth, who suffered while I lived in the lap of luxury, wearing her clothes, stealing her parents' love.

And now that Im broken, lying in this hospital bed, shes the only one showing up.

I feel the wet, cool touch of a cotton swab on my cracked lips.

"I'm going abroad," Diana says softly. Her voice is calm, devoid of the venom everyone else spits at me. "This tragedy I never wanted this. Juliette, please. Wake up. Come home. I don't blame you."

If I could move, Id laugh. A bitter, jagged sound.

You don't blame me.

Thats nice. But I can't go home.

That house isn't a home anymore. And those people? Kenneth, Theresa, Sebastian they aren't the family who adored me.

No one remembers the love. No one remembers we used to be happy.

The nightmare started on a Tuesday.

Sebastian met a girl.

She looked just like him. Same nose. Same chin. She even had the red mole at the corner of her eyethe exact genetic trademark of our father, Kenneth.

He felt an instant, magnetic pull. A sibling instinct he couldnt explain.

He brought her home.

The moment Kenneth and Theresa saw her, the air left the room.

They looked at her face. Then they looked at mine.

The silence was deafening.

The suspicion was immediate.

Days later, a piece of paper destroyed my world.

DNA Test Results: 0% Match.

I was the error. The glitch in the system.

My biological donors are the Zhengs. Marvin and Joyce.

Twenty-something years ago, our mothers gave birth in the same hospital, on the same day.

Kenneth was wasted after a business dinner. Theresa was too busy screaming at her plastic surgeon on the phone about her post-op recovery plan to pay attention to the cradle.

In the chaos, the tags got swapped.

And just like that, my life became a lie.

Chapter 2

While the Chen family empire expanded into a dynasty, I was busy being their spoiled little centerpiece.

I lived in silk and sunlight.

Meanwhile, in the cramped Zheng apartment, the real daughter was scraping by. Eating dirt. Surviving.

I was groomed to be a delicate flower. Diana? She was forged in fire.

She grinded. She studied. She even clawed her way into an internship at my dads company. Thats where Sebastian found her.

You know the story. Its a tale as old as time.

The lost princess returns to the castle.

And the imposter? The servant girl who stole the crown? She gets exposed.

I was the glitch. The parasite.

I tried to cling to them. I was shameless, begging for the love I thought was mine.

I was humiliated. Stripped down to nothing. Defeated.

Usually, in stories like this, the villain gets executed. Swift. Clean.

But I didnt die.

Im stuck in this purgatory. A vegetable.

I cant live. I cant die. I cant even lift a finger to finish what the pavement started.

It is a punishment far crueler than death.

"Juliette," Dianas voice cuts through my dark thoughts. "Please get better soon. Mom, Dad, and Sebastian theyre waiting for you at home."

Silence stretches out. Thick and heavy.

Then, she adds the kill shot.

"Oh, right. Dawson is going abroad with me. Has he visited you? He must have told you, right?"

Dawson.

The name hits my system like a shockwave.

My airway constricts.

Its not a conscious choice. My brain sends the signal to breathe, but my body revolts. The muscles in my throat lock up, strangling me from the inside.

Dawson. My fianc.

We were supposed to announce our engagement next month.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

The sudden drop in oxygen triggers the alarms. The room fills with the frantic shrieking of the monitor.

Diana panics. I hear her running, calling for help.

Dr. Elliott rushes in. I feel his hands on me, checking vitals, adjusting the machines. He sighs. A heavy, frustrated sound.

"Look at this," Dr. Elliott says, his voice grim. "Every time her body tries to recover, her mind shuts it down. Its like shes manually overriding her own survival instincts. She is actively rejecting life."

He pauses, his tone turning sharp.

"Youre her sister, right? Where are the parents? Why haven't they been here? Not even once?"

"I suspect the patient has zero will to live," he continues brutally. "If this keeps up shes gone."

Diana hesitates. Her voice trembles. "I Ill go home right now. Ill tell my parents and brother!"

She spins around and runs out. The door clicks shut.

If I had control of my face, Id be grinning. A twisted, ugly smile.

They won't come.

They hate me. Im the thief. The liar. The mistake.

I thought I knew my family.

Correction: I thought I knew Dianas family.

But I was wrong.

Theresa came.

My mother. My adoptive mother.

She actually came.

She sits in the chair beside my bed. I cant see her face, but I smell her perfume. Expensive. Cold.

"Doctor," Theresa says. Her voice is crisp, annoyed. Like shes speaking to a manager about a defective handbag. "We paid the medical bills in full. Why is there still a problem?"

Dr. Elliott sounds taken aback. "Ma'am, as I explained the patient has lost the will to live. This isn't something surgery can fix. When a patient gives up hope, the body follows. We need the familys cooperation to address the psychological trauma."

Theresa scoffs. I can hear the impatience in her shifting posture.

"Psychological trauma? Please. I know her better than anyone. She loves luxury. She loves partying. She loves herself too much to ever give up on life."

Silence.

Dr. Elliott is stunned into silence.

After a long, uncomfortable pause, he speaks again. His voice is tentative, dangerous.

"Do you still want us to continue treatment? If not we can remove the life support."

Chapter 3

Theresa snaps. "Who says we don't want her? She is my dau"

The word hangs in the air. Severed.

Silence fills the room. Heavy. Awkward.

Then, a mumbled correction, her voice losing its fire. "Well, she called me 'Mom' for twenty years. That has to count for something."

Dr. Elliott pivots, sensing an opening. "Stimulate her brain. Read her favorite books. Play the shows she binged. Talk about the celebrities she obsessed over. Anything to spark that survival instinct."

Theresa processes this. She pulls out her phone and dials.

I hear Sebastians voice leak through the speaker. He sounds loud. Cheerful.

"Mom? Kinda busy right now. I'm helping Dawson plan the proposal. What's up?"

Proposal.

The word acts like shrapnel.

If I could blink, tears would be streaming down my temples. But I cant.

My eyes are dry deserts. The pressure builds behind my lids, a burning, stinging weight that I cannot release.

Is Dawson proposing to Diana?

Theresa stiffens. Even she is thrown off.

"Just come home," she says, her voice tight. "Grab Juliette's old books. Bring them to the hospital. I need to read to her."

Sebastian groans. The irritation is palpable. "Mom, seriously? The doctors treat her. The nurses take care of her. Why are you stressing yourself out? The bills are paid. That's enough."

Theresa doesn't argue. She just orders him to do it and kills the call.

I get it.

To them, I am the invader. The parasite.

I ruined Diana. I poisoned the Chen family well.

Month two of Diana's return. That was when Theresa found out about the depression.

Diana opened up about the starving years. The years of poverty.

She talked about forced labor. Hands cracked and bleeding from the freezing cold. Parents who screamed and hit because they were broke and miserable. The bullies at school who smelled the desperation on her clothes.

Theresa fell apart.

She clutched Diana's scarred hands and wailed.

I stood there. Frozen. Useless.

Fear spiked in my gut. A cold, sliding sensation.

Yesterday, I was the princess. Today? I'm the criminal.

Theresa caught me zoning out. Her gaze snapped to mine.

Zero warmth. It was the first time she had ever looked at me like that.

"Don't you have anything to say?"

I froze again.

I was always her baby. Her spoiled little girl. She used to tell me I'd be her baby forever. I even joked about being a "Mommy's girl."

Now? That look.

She didn't even look at the maid who stole the silver with that much disgust.

Heat rushed to my face. I was so sheltered, so blind to the danger closing in.

I actually stomped my foot. Like a brat. "Mom, stop looking at me like that!"

Theresa gripped Diana's hand. Her knuckles turned white. Her teeth ground together. "How should I look at you? Should I throw a parade to thank your parents?"

Your parents

Chapter 4

I went silent.

A cold, creeping terror took root in my gut.

The mother who gave me everythingthe woman who used to hold me close and whisper secretshad vanished.

When Diana was first found, Theresa looked me in the eye. She swore I was still her child. She said, "You just have a sister now, thats all."

Lies.

My intuition screamed at me. The other shoe wasn't just going to drop. It was going to stomp me out of existence.

Sebastian returned. He was clutching a stack of books from my old room.

It was a pathetic pile. I wasn't exactly a scholar.

Kenneth, my father, always told me not to bother with books.

"Juliette, you're a Chen," hed say, waving his cigar. "We don't need you to grind. Just shop. Eat well. Look pretty. Seeing you spend money gives me the motivation to earn it."

Then Diana showed up.

She brought her transcript. Her internships. Her grit.

Kenneth beamed at her like she was a gold bar. He gave himself a thumbs-up. "Thats Chen DNA for you! Plant a good seed, get a good harvest. Excellence blooms anywhere."

Then his eyes slid to me.

The realization hit him. I saw it in his face.

I wasn't just different. I was the weed in his garden. Defective stock.

Dianas study was a library. Wall-to-wall knowledge.

Mine? It held one worn-out set of fairy tales.

A Complete Collection of Classic Fairy Tales.

Sebastian bought them for me years ago.

It was the only gift he ever gave me without being forced. He was always distant, cold as ice, but I trailed after him like a lost puppy anyway. I worshipped those books because they came from him.

He handed the book to Theresa now, clearing his throat. He looked awkward. "Why did she keep this old junk? It's falling apart."

Because it was yours, you idiot.

I wanted to take it when I was kicked out. I tried.

But Sebastian watched me like a hawk. Like I was going to steal the family silver. The accusation in his eyes burned.

Thief.

So I left it. Out of spite. Out of shame.

Theresa opened the book. Her cold fingers grazed my withered hand, trying to find a softness that wasn't there.

"Juliette listen to my voice. Wake up."

She started reading. Snow White.

"The little princess had skin as white as snow, hair as black as ebony, and lips as red as blood"

She stopped. Frowned. "Did she actually like this stuff? It seems so childish."

I couldn't tell her.

Yes, Mom. I was reading it the night before I left. Those crinkled spots on the page? Thats where my tears dried.

Surprisingly, Sebastian answered.

"She loved it. Look at the pages. They're worn thin."

Theresa continued.

"she was kind-hearted and loved to play with the little animals in the forest"

Theresas voice hitched.

She paused again. A memory flickered behind her eyes.

A sad, wobbly smile broke through her composure.

"That sounds just like Juliette when she was little. Snow-white skin, black hair. Always chasing those little animals."

She looked up, blinking. "The stray cats near the estate no one has fed them in a long time, right? Not since Juliette moved out?"

I did.

I came back to feed them, Mom.

They were the only ones left who didn't look at me with hate.

Chapter 5

Even after I finalized my exit plan, I made sure the cats wouldn't starve.

I bought bags of premium kibbleenough to last monthsand arranged for a shelter volunteer to take over the feeding schedule.

Sebastian stays silent for a long moment. Maybe he remembers, too.

Then, he clears his throat, his voice low and warning. "Don't talk about this stuff in front of Diana, Mom. She's stressing over the engagement party with Dawson. She needs good vibes only."

Theresa nods quickly, eager to move past the awkwardness. She turns the page.

She reads until she hits the part about the Evil Stepmother.

Then, she stops.

I know why. I used to scribble in the margins of my books.

There, in clumsy, childish crayon, I had written:

This is so scary! Im so lucky I have the best Mommy in the whole world.

Theresa freezes. Her voice catches in her throat.

She stares at the page for a long time before she forces herself to continue. Her voice is shaky now, thin as glass.

She gets to the part with the Poison Apple.

She stops again.

Because there is another note there.

But this one isn't written in crayon. Its written in black ink. Jagged. Messy.

I wrote it right before I packed my bags and left the Chen mansion.

Why did she hate Snow White so much? She called her 'Mother' for years. Doesn't that soften a heart, even a little? Snow White didn't know any better. She just wanted a mom.

I remember writing that. Each word was heavy, stained with tears that crinkled the paper.

Suddenly, Theresa starts coughing.

Its a violent, racking sound. A physical rejection of what she just read.

Sebastian jumps. He snatches the book from her hands. "Mom, go home. The smell of antiseptic is getting to you. You're choking."

Theresa keeps coughing, waving him off, face buried in her hand.

"Seriously, Mom," Sebastian presses, impatient. "Diana needs help with the engagement details. It's her first time. She doesn't know what she's doing."

Theresa finally manages to stop. She nods, wiping her eyes, and turns toward the door. "Keep reading to her, Sebastian," she whispers, her back to him. "Read a few more stories."

"Yeah, yeah. I got it."

Dr. Elliott walks in just as shes leaving. He checks his watch, confused. "Leaving already? It's been ten minutes."

"Family business," Theresa mumbles, avoiding eye contact. "Her brother will stay."

She pauses at the door, hand on the frame. "Doctor did she really did she choose not to live?"

Dr. Elliotts expression doesn't waver. "Absolutely. You can't forget how she ended up in this state."

Theresa leaves without another word.

Sebastian watches her go, then lets out a cold, sharp sneer.

"Please. She's greedy and terrified of dying. She didn't want to die."

He looks at my unmoving body with pure contempt.

"It was a shakedown. She was trying to scare me into giving her cash and she played the game too hard. Slipped."

Cash.

One month before the jump, I did ask Sebastian for money.

My biological father, Marvin, needed surgery. It was urgent.

Diana was on a business trip, unreachable in a dead zone. The Zheng family found me, desperate, asking if I could float them a loan.

But I had just moved out of the Chen house.

To prove I wasn't a gold diggerto prove I wasn't trying to steal Diana's inheritanceI had returned every cent Sebastian and Kenneth had ever given me.

I went to Sebastian. I swallowed my pride.

He sat back in his leather chair, looking at me like I was a beggar on the street.

"I'm keeping your money safe for you," he had drawled, slow and cruel. "You're lazy, Juliette. You love the good life too much. I knew you'd come crawling back eventually."

I remember what I told him.

I stood tall. I looked him in the eye.

I have hands. I have feet. I might not be a genius like Diana, but I can work. I only have myself to feed.

Sebastian just laughed.

A cold, mocking sound that followed me all the way out the door.

Chapter 6

I got a job.

Cashier at a convenience store. Scanning barcodes, bagging chips. It paid enough to keep a roof over my head and ramen in my stomach, but it wasn't enough.

Not for the surgery Marvinmy biological fatherdesperately needed.

I had no choice. I swallowed my pride and dialed Sebastian.

I wasn't asking for his money. I just wanted to borrow against the savings account I had left behind at the Chen estate. The allowance I had saved for years.

Sebastian picked up. I barely got the words out.

"Money?" He let out a cold, sharp laugh. "Wheres that backbone you were so proud of? Done playing the martyr already?"

I tried to speak, but he cut me off.

"I'm in a meeting. Busy."

Click.

I stared at the phone. A bitter smile stretched my face.

You idiot.

I wasn't a Chen anymore. Why did I think I had any right to that money? I should have just left it all.

I took a deep breath. My chest felt tight.

I opened the App Store and downloaded a loan app.

A predatory lender. High interest. The kind that breaks your kneecaps financially for years. But I had to pay the hospital deposit.

The loan officer set up an in-person verification for Monday.

I sighed, agreed, and hung up. I was ready to sign my life away.

Then Sunday came.

Diana returned.

She heard about her foster fathers condition. She went straight to Kenneth and Theresa, got the check, and paid the hospital bill in full.

When Theresa called to tell me the news, my knees gave out.

I let out a long, shuddering exhale.

I was safe. I didn't have to walk into that loan shark's office. I didn't have to ruin my financial future. The relief was a physical weight lifting off my shoulders.

But on the other end of the line, Theresa went silent.

The silence stretched. Cold. Judgmental.

"You're relieved?" she finally said. Her voice was flat, devoid of warmth. "A person who isn't willing to sacrifice for the parents who gave her life is worse than an animal."

I froze.

No.

It wasn't that I didn't want to pay. It wasn't that I didn't care. I was just relieved I wasn't going to be drowning in debt!

"Mom, wait"

Click.

She hung up.

I called back. Straight to voicemail.

That was the moment the lights went out inside me.

My energy evaporated.

Waking up became a war. Gravity felt ten times stronger. Pulling the curtains open required a Herculean effort. Washing my face felt like running a marathon.

Most days, I just lay there.

I kept the curtains drawn. I lay in the suffocating dark, staring at nothing.

Tears leaked out of my eyes, hot and silent, until I passed out from exhaustion.

I thought it was just sadness. I thought I would snap out of it.

I didn't know it was the monster.

Depression.

By the time I realized what it was, I was already drowning in the deep end. Severe. Chronic.

And even now, lying here in this hospital bed, that black dog is still sitting on my chest, crushing my lungs, manually overriding my will to live.

Sebastians voice breaks through my thoughts.

Hes still reading. Its ironic, really. Hes taking time out of his busy schedule to read to the sister he despises.

He turns the page of the tattered book. The Ugly Duckling.

"The Ugly Duckling finally understood," Sebastian reads, his voice slow and methodical. "He was a swan. He was never like the ducks in the farmyard."

His voice is smooth, detached.

But the irony slices through me like a blade.

Chapter 7

If I could force my eyelids open, I know exactly what Id see.

Sebastians face. That signature, devastatingly handsome features twisted into a sneer.

"A swan is a swan," he murmurs, his voice low and smooth. "Even if you bury it in a pile of ducks, it eventually finds its way back to the lake."

Hes only here because Theresa forced him. I can hear it in the aggressive way he flips the pages, the tension in his breathing. Hes pissed.

He continues reading. Then, he hits the brakes.

He stumbled upon another one of my margin notes.

But who put the swan egg in the duck nest in the first place? Thats just cruel.

The room goes dead silent. The air pressure seems to drop.

Then, I feel it.

Warmth.

His fingers graze my cheek.

The touch is so sudden, so alien, that if I weren't paralyzed by tubes and trauma, I would have levitated off the mattress.

Sebastian is touching my face.

Hell must have frozen over.

I search my memories, digging through the archives. He wasn't always an iceberg.

But he never looked at me. Not really. Whenever our eyes met, he would pivot, looking anywhere else. Like I was something unsightly and he didn't want to dirty his eyes.

I used to think he hated me.

I tried harder. I shadowed him like a desperate little ghost, begging for a crumb of attention. It never worked.

Except once.

I was sixteen. Kenneth and Theresa were at a gala. A thunderstorm was ripping the sky apart.

I was terrified, sobbing into my pillow. Sebastian came in. He didn't mock me. He sat on the edge of the bed and patted my back until the hiccups stopped.

In the haze between wakefulness and sleep, I felt it then, too. This same touch. A hand on my cheek.

But the next morning? The walls were back up. Higher than before. He looked at me with something worse than indifference. It looked like resentment.

Just like now.

The moment stretches, heavy and confusing, and then

SCREECH.

He stands up so abruptly the chair skids across the floor tiles.

Hes running.

If I weren't a vegetable, Id say he was fleeing a crime scene.

At the door, his footsteps halt. I hear a sharp intake of breath. A hesitation. The air crackles, waiting for him to speak.

He doesn't.

Click. The door shuts.

I float in the silence, trying to solve the puzzle of Sebastian.

Why did he despise me so much?

I was his shadow as a kid. I was obedient and gentle as a teen. I never could thaw him out.

He treats everyone else with this polished, gentlemanly charm. But with me? Permafrost.

When Diana came back, I didn't even feel threatened at first. I just thought, Cool, a sister.

Then I saw how Sebastian treated her.

The floodgates opened. Designer bags, jewelry, clotheshe showered her with gifts. He spoiled her.

Me? I had one battered book of fairy tales.

I rationalized it. I told myself he respected her hustle. Diana was a career woman. A shark.

So, I tried to evolve.

I wanted Sebastian to look at me with that same respect.

I went to Kenneth. I begged for a job.

"Put me in sales," I said. "I'll start at the bottom."

I wanted to be like Diana. Sharp. Useful. Worthy of Sebastians gaze.

I grinded. I was the first one in, last one out. I swallowed my pride and learned the ropes.

The staff loved me. They knew I was the "Chen Princess," but they saw me hauling boxes and eating takeout at my desk. They took me in. They invited me to happy hours.

I was finally fitting in. Or so I thought.

Chapter 8

I thought I was cracking the code. I thought thisthis hustlewas what would finally make Sebastian smile at me.

I was wrong.

He saw me at happy hour with the sales team. Laughing. Normal.

He didn't wave. He didn't smile.

He stared at me through the windshield of his car, his expression unreadable, then slammed on the gas. The tires screeched against the asphalt as he peeled away.

When I got home, the atmosphere had shifted.

Sebastian was in the living room, talking low and fast to Kenneth.

My father looked up. His eyesusually calculating, sharp, the eyes of a man who built an empirelocked onto me.

I knew that look. Id seen him use it on competitors and shifty business partners.

It was the look of a forensic accountant searching for a lie.

He had never looked at me like that before.

"Sebastian tells me you're making waves at the company," Kenneth said. His voice was casual, but his eyes were drilling holes in me. "Doing better than Diana, apparently?"

I blinked, confused. The alcohol from the happy hour made my head feel fuzzy.

"Uh, I guess? It's fine. Diana is C-Suite material, Dad. She doesn't need to be drinking cheap margaritas with the staff to get ahead."

I meant it. Diana was the shark. I was just the plankton trying to float. She was destined to rule the boardroom next to Sebastian. I was just trying to fit in.

Kenneth nodded slowly. He didn't smile. "Go to bed."

I climbed the stairs. I could feel his gaze burning into my back. A physical weight.

I was too buzzed to process the danger signals.

The hangover hit the next morning.

I got to the office early, head pounding, and ducked into the restroom.

I was in the third stall when the door opened. High heels clicking on tile.

It was Randy, my manager. And his assistant.

"Lock Juliette out of the confidential files," Randy said. His voice was bored, transactional.

"What? Why?"

"Orders from the penthouse. Don't ask questions."

A pause. Then Randy lowered his voice.

"Look, we have a real Crown Princess now. The Big Boss doesn't need the counterfeit trying to embezzle the inheritance or steal trade secrets. We're freezing her out."

My blood turned to slush.

I sat on the toilet lid, my knuckles gripping the fabric of my skirt until they turned white.

Counterfeit.

Embezzle.

I waited until the door clicked shut and the silence returned.

I walked out of the stall. My face was wet. I didn't even feel the tears start.

I typed my resignation letter. Sent it. Walked out.

Sebastian saw the notification. He cornered me before I left the building.

He didn't ask me to stay. He laughed. A cold, dismissive sound.

"Quitter," he sneered. "You really are hopeless, aren't you?"

I didn't argue. He was right.

Im not a genius like him. Im not a warrior like Diana.

I am average. I am a fool.

But even fools bleed when you cut them.

I wandered the streets for hours. No destination. Just putting one foot in front of the other.

I remembered Kenneth. The old Kenneth.

He used to drag me everywhere. My heart, he called me. My little treasure.

"Girls don't need to study, Jules," hed say, snatching textbooks out of my hands. "You just need to be happy. Be pretty. Marry well. Daddy will protect you until your husband takes over."

If I studied for an extra thirty minutes, hed throw a fit. Hed say I was ruining my eyes. Hed force me to go shopping instead.

He crippled me with kindness.

Fear spiked in my chest. A cold, hollow ache.

That dad was he dead?

Did the love just transfer? Like a bank wire? Did he drain my account to fill Diana's?

I was naive. I refused to believe that twenty years of adoration could evaporate overnight.

I pulled out my phone. My hands were shaking. I dialed his number.

I needed to hear it. I needed to know.

"Daddy?" I tried to keep my voice light, tried to channel the spoiled little girl he used to love. "You you still love me, right? Even with everything?"

Silence.

Static.

Then, Kenneths voice came through. It wasn't the voice of my father. It was the voice of the CEO.

"Juliette. If you are short on cash, I will wire you some. When I'm gone, Sebastian will make sure you don't starve."

He paused.

"But do not covet things that do not belong to you. Know your place. What isn't yours, will never be yours."

Chapter 9

I froze.

The words didn't register.

No, thats a lie. I understood them perfectly. I just didn't want to survive them.

The late autumn wind cut through my clothes, bypassing skin and muscle, drilling straight into the marrow. I was cold. Bone-deep cold.

I mumbled a goodbye. Hung up.

I just wanted a little love. A crumb.

That was it.

But who would believe that now? To them, I was just a ledger of debts and demands.

I quit the job. I went back to the apartment. And my body just stopped.

I got sick.

Not a fever. Not a virus. The doctors ran blood panels, checked my thyroid, scanned everything. All normal.

But I was a ghost in my own skin.

My energy was gone. Evaporated. Getting out of bed felt like lifting a boulder.

Theresa worried for about forty-eight hours. Then Sebastian stepped in.

He briefed her on the "situation" at the company. He spun the narrative.

"She's staging a protest," he told her, his voice dripping with certainty. "It's passive resistance. She's playing sick to force a concession from us."

Theresa looked at me then.

She didn't say a word. She didn't have to.

The trust in her eyes died. Replaced by a flat, weary suspicion.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to open my heart and show them the emptiness that was consuming me.

I really am sick.

I really can't move.

If I could control thisif I could flip a switch and be the happy, bubbly daughter againI would have done it in a heartbeat. I didn't want to see Theresa frown.

But I had lost the controls.

My life had shifted from Technicolor pink to a suffocating, static gray.

Just like now.

Lying in this hospital bed. No attachments. No future. Just a desperate, silent plea for the end.

Sebastian left.

Theresa returned, dragging Kenneth with her.

Its pathetic, really. Even noweven after the rejection, the coldness, the DNA testshearing Theresas voice triggers a reflex I cant kill.

My chest aches.

I want to be five years old again. I want to bury my face in her neck, smell her perfume, and sob until she rubs my back.

Mommy, it hurts. Mommy, make it stop.

But I can't.

Even if I woke up right now, I couldn't do that.

My last name is Zheng. Not Chen. That door is locked, and they changed the locks.

Kenneth stepped into the room. He stopped dead.

"My God," he whispered, his voice cracking. "Juliette she's she's skeletal."

Theresa started to tremble. "It's only been a few days since I saw her. How did she lose so much weight? Doctor! Where is Dr. Elliott?"

Dr. Elliott walked in. Calm. Professional. Patient.

This is a private wing for the elite. Hes used to dealing with high-maintenance families.

"Mr. Chen, Mrs. Chen," he began, his tone grave. "I need you to understand the severity of this. If this continues, your daughter is facing total organ failure."

He gestured to the monitors.

"I have seen patients wake up from comas against all odds because they had a ferocious will to live. And I have seen patients with minor injuries fade away because they simply let go."

He locked eyes with Kenneth.

"Her survival instinct is zero. That is the critical factor here. She is evicting herself from her own body."

Silence. Thick and suffocating.

After a long minute, Kenneth cleared his throat. He forced a laugh, but it sounded brittle.

"But how can Juliette have no will to live? She loves life! She loves food. She loves parties. She's always bouncing off the walls with energy."

No one answered him.

The silence stretched, eating his words.

Even I tried to remember the girl he was talking about.

The foodie? The party girl? The energetic daughter?

Did she ever exist?

I honestly can't remember.

Chapter 10

Theresa collapses into the chair beside my bed. She picks up the tattered book, but her eyes are glued to me.

"I didn't come for a few days," she chokes out, tears already spilling. "And look at her. Shes shes half gone. How did she lose so much weight?"

"Stop it," Kenneth barks. His voice is tight, strained. "Don't talk like that. Juliette will wake up. She'll eat. She'll gain it back."

Theresa doesn't listen. She grips my wrist, her manicured fingers pressing into my skin.

"Her skin is jaundiced, Kenneth. Can't you see? I raised this child from a baby. She has never looked like this. Like a corpse."

Kenneth sighs, a heavy, rattling sound. He looks away, unable to stomach the sight.

"I thought you were going to read to her? Why fairy tales? She's an adult."

"She loves them," Theresa sobs, clutching the book to her chest.

Kenneth forces a smile. It looks painful. "Well, we did always call her our Little Princ"

The word dies in his throat.

Silence slams into the room.

I know what he's thinking. He remembers the lawyer's office. The paperwork. The day he legally stripped me of the Chen name.

He didn't call me "Princess" that day.

He called me Juliette Zheng. The Sinner. The Stranger.

He hasn't used the pet name since.

Kenneth clears his throat, desperate to break the tension. "Just read. Hurry up."

Theresa wipes her face and opens the book. The pages are soft, worn down by years of my fingers turning them.

She starts Cinderella.

"Once upon a time, there was a beautiful girl who had a wicked stepmother and two cruel stepsisters"

Cinderella.

I used to skip this one. It wasn't flashy like Snow White or tragic like The Little Mermaid.

But later? It became my bible.

The hazel tree in the garden. The white birds.

They weren't just magic. They were the spirit of Cinderella's dead mother. Watching over her. Protecting her.

I believed that.

After the name change, when I felt my world crumbling, I would hide in the library and read it over and over. I fantasized about my own hazel tree. I imagined my own flock of birds.

If I had that tree, I wouldn't ask for a dress. I wouldn't go to the ball. I wouldn't give a damn about the Prince.

I just wanted my mother to love me again.

Just once.

That was my only wish. And I wrote it down.

In the margins of the Cinderella story, the white space is filled with my desperate, messy handwriting.

I don't want the inheritance.

I just want Mom to love me again.

Mom, please love me again.

Mom, please love me again.

Mom, please love me again.

Please.

Theresa reads, but she hasn't reached those pages yet.

Eventually, my spirit broke. The depression took my energy, and I stopped writing. I stopped asking.

But right before I packed my boxes to leave the Chen estate forever, I wrote one final entry.

I have two mothers. One adoptive. One biological. And neither loves me.

They both love Diana.

Theresa loves Diana. Thats obvious.

But Joyce? My biological mother? She loves Diana, too.

Whenever Joyce looked at me, her eyes were red. Not for me. But for the daughter she missed. The daughter who suffered.

Her first question was never about me. It was always, "How is Diana doing?"

I never really envied Diana. I accepted my fate.

Except for that moment.

In that moment, the jealousy burned me alive.

Chapter 11

Why?

Why does Joyce remember twenty years of details about Diana, while Theresa forgot me in a heartbeat?

I have two mothers.

Neither loves me.

I am the punchline of a cosmic joke. An unlucky penny that no one wants to pick up.

And now, this unlucky penny is lying in a hospital bed, quietly waiting to be spent.

But then Theresa starts to cry.

Shes reading the margins. She sees the desperate prayers I wrote in ink.

Her voice cracks. Breaks. Dissolves.

Suddenly, I feel weight on my chest. Shes hugging me. Her face is buried in my neck, wet and hot.

"Juliette Mom loves you. Mom loves you."

She says it over and over. A mantra.

Juliette, Mom loves you.

But does it matter?

I can feel the tide going out. My life is slipping through the cracks of my body, faster and faster.

Mom.

Love isn't magic. Its not a defibrillator.

Delayed love is useless. Its like watering a dead plant.

Death is my destination. Love is not