Chapter 3

3

My mother was a career-driven attorney who never touched a frying pan, but my father had never cooked a single meal for me either.

Whenever my father and I had been left alone at home, he would coldly tell me to boil a pack of instant ramen.

Yet whenever Stella was around, he would enthusiastically spend hours in the kitchen preparing gourmet dishes.

I used to believe my father was just an emotionally distant man who didn't know how to express love. Only later did I understand that he knew how to love just fine―he simply didn't love me.

"Stella just recovered, so let's not ruin the mood by mentioning that bad omen," my father said with deep scorn. "If only Nora had a third of Stella's grace and warmth."

He scoffed in disgust at my name, yet looked at Stella with boundless affection.

I knew why he hated me so much. He needed me to carry the blame so he wouldn't have to face the guilt of causing my mother's premature delivery.

Watching the three of them laughing and sharing food around the warm dining table felt blindingly painful.

For the very first time, I felt an overwhelming urge to flee this house forever.

Two weeks flew by in a flash. After that first day back, my parents seemed to have completely erased me from their memories, never mentioning my name again.

Early one morning, they took Stella back to the downtown clinic for a follow-up exam.

After the specialist reviewed Stella's lab results and confirmed everything was in perfect order, the family turned to leave the corridor.

Nearby, a cluster of nurses stood around a smartphone, whispering furiously.

"How can a mother be this cruel? She actually took her own biological daughter to court just to harvest her organs!"

"And she's supposed to be an elite lawyer! Highly educated, yet she played favorites so brutally that she literally killed her own child."

My mother froze in her tracks the moment she recognized the sharp, familiar voice echoing from the phone screen.

Playing on the video was the courtroom recording where my mother passionately laid out my alleged crimes, aggressively demanding the court compel my stem cell donation.

In the footage, I had sat in the defendant's seat, completely silent throughout the trial, until the very end.

"Mom, if donating these stem cells puts my life in severe, fatal danger, will you still demand I do it?"

Compared to my mother's hysterical aggression, my calm tone in the recording sounded eerily quiet.

Her shrill voice on the phone screen quickly drowned me out.

"How did I raise such a cold-blooded monster? Your sister is dying, and you're still making up disgusting lies! Are you trying to drive me to my grave?"

In the video, I had stopped arguing.

I knew she would never believe me, and I knew she would do anything to save Stella.

My final plea had merely been the last pathetic ember of hope before the darkness took over.

I took a deep breath, biting down hard on my thumb to keep from collapsing emotionally.

"Fine. I'll donate."

I knew that even if I refused, my mother's sharp tongue and legal prowess would win the verdict anyway. She had abandoned all dignity and ethics for Stella.

So, I abandoned my life.

"What kind of absolute garbage are you spewing? Who killed their own daughter?!"

My mother stormed over and snatched the smartphone straight out of the nurse's hands.

On the screen, my mother's face was twisted in ugly, fanatical rage as she glared down at me.

The nurse was startled for a second, but after looking between my mother's face and the video, she let out a cold, venomous laugh.

"Oh, so you're the monster lawyer who forced her firstborn to death for her second child! No wonder your daughter died. Someone as rotten as you deserves all the karma coming your way."

My mother froze on the spot. Her fingers loosened, and the phone slipped from her grip, clattering against the linoleum floor.

"My daughter… is dead?" she murmured, her voice trembling violently.

The nurse quickly crouched down to pick up her device, only to find the glass screen completely shattered.

"You're paying for my broken screen!"

The chaotic shouting around her seemed to fade into a muffled hum. The entire world turned into a silent, colorless void for my mother.

She stumbled down the hospital corridor like a hollow shell, deaf to the nurse's furious screams behind her.

My father chased after her, only to be grabbed by the angry nurse. After being forced to listen to the brutal truth of my fatal hemorrhage, my father froze in sheer terror.