【Watching Emily be so sensible… I regret ever taking you back from the foster home.】
A sharp pain stabbed through my chest, as if a piece of my heart had been ripped away, the cold wind flooding in.
I coughed violently, the taste of iron filling my throat.
With a splatter, blood gushed from my mouth.
Dr. Wilson had warned me my symptoms would worsen—coughing would turn into bleeding, chest pains would become common.
But I didn’t expect it so soon.
Tears burned my eyes as I pulled out my phone and messaged Linda:
【Can I really come back?】
【But Robert and Daniel don’t want me there.】
Her reply came quickly.
【Come back first. We’re family. What grudges can’t be let go overnight?】
I closed my eyes and replied:
【Okay.】
She gave birth to me—surely she must still love me.
If she knew I was really sick, she would hold me and ask if I was hurting.
If Robert and Daniel knew, they’d forgive me too, wouldn’t they?
They’d care for me, stop being angry.
Emily’s lies would no longer work.
Maybe, just maybe, I could follow Dr. Wilson’s advice and fight to live.
With treatment, I could live for many more years.
I was still young. I had never really felt my family’s love.
I didn’t want to die.
So, I went home.
When I stepped through the door, everyone’s eyes fixed on me.
Emily lay pale and weak on the sofa, barely breathing.
“Sis, you’re back. I came downstairs just to greet you…”
The bandage on her wrist was soaked with crimson, making her look fragile and pitiful.
Robert snorted coldly.
“For your mother’s sake, I’ll let you stay. But from now on, don’t go near Emily.”
Daniel threw the shredded rag doll at my feet, sneering:
“If you bully Emily again, this doll is what’ll happen to you.”
I put down the bag of medicine and picked the doll up with aching care.
It had been sewn for me by an elderly woman at the shelter, using scraps of clean cloth.
As a child, I had envied girls who owned Barbie dolls. I never had one.
So she made me a doll of my own.
Through seven years of wandering, it was my only companion.
Now, she was dead, and the doll was torn apart.
The only person who had ever truly loved me was gone.
The only companion I had left was gone too.
Pain clenched my chest and I doubled over coughing again.
Daniel frowned, a flicker of impatience in his eyes.
“Can you stop pretending already? Fine, I’ll buy you a new one.”
Not the same. How could it ever be the same?
No new doll would be the one she sewed for me.