Aside from keeping me from leaving the house, they treated me fairly well. I spent my days following Gracie, the town idiot, around, calling her “sister” and playing with her. Ever since she found out I was supposed to be her future husband, she started giving me the chicken drumsticks her parents stewed to make her stronger.
But Mabel and Fabienne weren’t as lucky.
They were tied up almost every day, used and abused by Tavian and Faron. Within six months, Mabel was pregnant.
That only made me feel better. Those two had spent their lives selling people like livestock—now, they got to experience what it was like to be trapped, powerless, and violated.
Gracie might’ve been an idiot, but she was nice to me.
She listened when I talked, and she even convinced Jethro and Melinda to let me go to school with her. She protected me too, refusing to let them order me around like a servant. At first, they resisted, but when she threw a tantrum—crying, screaming, and even refusing to eat—they gave in.
So, they sent me to the town school with her, though they changed my name to Jorren and told everyone I was just some orphan they had taken in.
The whole town believed it.
They saw how well-behaved and smart I was and never suspected a thing. They even praised Jethro and Melinda for being such good people, saying that kindness brings good fortune—after all, their daughter had found herself such a wonderful companion.
I treated Gracie like a real sister, looking after her in every way I could.
Once, she twisted her ankle in the hills behind the town, and I carried her all the way home, walking until my feet were covered in blisters.
That was the moment Jethro and Melinda completely let their guard down. They believed I genuinely cared about their daughter.
And in a way, I did. Not in the way they thought, but because she was kind.
Out of everyone in that house, in both of my lives, she was the only one who had ever treated me with real kindness.
In my last life, she had been the only reason I hadn’t been completely broken by the abuse. Her mind was simple, her world pure—she had no cruelty in her.
Ten years passed in the blink of an eye.
I turned into an adult now, and Gracie was 20.
I knew my real parents and the cope would find me soon.
And my little brother—he’d be switching back into his own body any day now.