Chapter 5
Sometimes, I even wondered if those people were ever really my parents.
The second time I saw Isabelle, I was ten.
It was Christmas, and her family came over as guests. Our parents had agreed to take us to the
nearby town of Grendale for some fun.
Because my parents had something come up at the last minute, I rode with Isabelle’s parents first.
On the way, they started fighting again. Then came the cold silence–they didn’t say a word to each
other.
Isabelle and I sat in the back, too scared to speak in the heavy, tense atmosphere.
Suddenly, Isabelle reached out to grab her mother’s arm from the front seat and whispered, “Mom,
please don’t be mad.”
Genevieve was still furious. She flung Isabelle’s hand away.
But her motion was too forceful. Isabelle recoiled suddenly, and Genevieve’s hand accidentally
struck the face of Isabelle’s father, who was driving.
Killian exploded in rage. Like a lion, he lunged at Genevieve and slapped her hard across the face.
At that moment, his hands left the steering wheel.
A massive boulder came loose from the hillside.
He noticed too late. Instinctively, he yanked the wheel, but the boulder crashed into the front of the
car, which then veered off the mountain road.
When I woke up from the crash, I was told it happened because I had cried and begged to go back and find my parents, which made Isabelle’s father get distracted for comforting me.
That was why the car was hit and fell off the cliff.
Isabelle’s parents died on the spot. Only Isabelle and I survived.
I was just ten. I couldn’t explain what really happened, let alone accuse Isabelle of lying.
“No! That’s a lie!”
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My father leapt to his feet, pointing at me and shouting.
My mother stared at me in shock, her lips trembling, unable to accept the truth.
At some point, Isabelle had quietly left the plaintiff’s bench, though her purse remained on the
seat.
“Memory cannot be fabricated,” the werewolf judge said coldly. He signaled the warriors to restrain my father.
They forced him back into his seat. He glared at me with resentment.
The memories continued to play on the screen.
Now, Isabelle was portrayed as the daughter of my saviors.
She moved into our home. Half of my room was cleared out and given to her.
I protested, and for the first time, my father hit me.
Under the weight of his slap, I quietly obeyed.
It started with the room. Then it was my clothes, my bed, my desk, my notebooks, my pens….
Anything Isabelle wanted, my parents would do whatever it took to give it to her.
At first, my mother would say, “Camilla, be good. We’re repaying your debt.”
But what debt did I owe?
At night, after my parents were asleep, Isabelle would lift my blanket and walk across my bed with
her shoes on.
During the day, she’d cut up my clothes with scissors.
She tore my homework into pieces and threw it from the balcony.
When I argued with her, she stabbed me with a compass, again and again.
She laughed with pure joy.
“Camilla, you don’t belong in this house.”
“You’re the extra one, don’t you get it?”
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“Why didn’t you die with them? You should’ve died too.”
I cried and told my mother.
But every time Isabelle would burst into tears. “I don’t know what I did to make Camilla hate me so much and accuse me of things. Maybe it’s because I’m an orphan… people just hate orphans.”
My mother looked at me with disgust. Then she pulled Isabelle into her arms and gently comforted
her.
“Isabelle, sweetie, don’t stoop to Camilla’s level. Let’s ignore her. Come on, I’ll take you out for a
treat.”
The day after the SSAT exams, Isabelle lay on her bed, smiling at me with fake innocence.
“What a shame. A top student can’t even go to school now.”
In the years I worked at the meatpacking plant, Isabelle would drop by occasionally.
“Look,” she said. “This is the dress your dad bought me. The phone your mom gave me. All paid for
with your money.
Chapter 5
