Chapter 2

I only got to know him because of Edwina. Edwina worked part-time at the internet café for a while. She said she was scared of the dark and begged me to come pick her up at night. After a few times, I started getting familiar with Aiden.

"That's all you brought?" Aiden asked, grabbing my suitcase, lifting it a bit, and frowning. "Wait here. I'll be just a sec."

"Aiden—" Before I could finish, he turned and strode into what used to be my home.

Exactly five minutes later, Aiden came out. In one hand, he was carrying a high-end computer tower. In the other, a large black case—it was a full set of Broasland-made pro-grade broadcasting equipment.

"I gave you this computer for your birthday last year. You saved up for the equipment from tutoring international students. These are yours, not the Sutton family's. Don't let that pretentious bitch get away with it." Aiden was referring to Edwina in his last remark.

Aiden looked pissed, his brow furrowed tight. "It's raining too hard. Come hang out at the internet café with me for a while. Later, I'll take you out to buy some daily essentials."

"Alright. Thanks, Aiden." I smiled, trying to ease the mood.

Aiden acted like my big brother, but he was actually six months younger than me.

When we got to the café, Aiden poured me a glass of water and asked, confused, "You're not mad?"

I cupped the glass in my hands and replied flatly, "I'm mad."

"Sure doesn't look like it. You're not even frowning," he said, clearly not buying it. "Even if everything Edwina said was true, she still picked your birthday party, with the most people around, to drop that bomb. She made a whole scene just to humiliate you. Don't tell me you can't see through her pretentious act."

I didn't answer directly. "If it's meant to happen, it'll happen. Unless that DNA report was fake, it doesn't matter if she said it in front of a hundred people or just one. The result would be the same. I just want to focus on living my life. I can get rich and become someone significant myself. Don't be furious on my behalf. There's no need."

From that day on, I returned to the slums, while Edwina moved into the mansion.

I thought that was the end of it—that our lives would never intersect again. But the very next day, at the school gates, Edwina knelt in front of me and slit her wrist.

*****

Valerie rushed into the hospital and slapped me across the face without a second's hesitation. "Natalie! Even if you're jealous of Edwina, even if you can't accept that she took everything from you—how could you push her to suicide? You're just so young! How can you be so cruel?"

After she said that, Jacob made a half-hearted attempt to hold her back. He looked at the red, swollen mark on my face, looking like he wanted to speak. Maybe he thought I wasn't the kind of person who would cause trouble out of nowhere. He started, "Natalie..."

I cut in, "Mr. Sutton, Edwina is your real daughter. I'm now Natalie Gladwin."

There was a flicker of hesitation in his eyes, but in the end, he didn't say a word.

"I'm calling the cops!" Valerie pointed at me, her voice ice-cold. "You lied to us for seventeen years—kept us from our own daughter all that time. We may not be your real parents, but we still raised you in comfort and luxury. And what about Edwina? She got stuck with an abusive, drunk, gambling addict who committed suicide. Now that she finally came home to us, you want to drive her to death?"

Before I could say anything, she already had her phone out and was dialing the police, saying she wanted me arrested.

But I hadn't done anything wrong. The school's front gate cameras had captured everything, and many students and teachers saw it with their own eyes—Edwina had run up to me, knelt, and cut her wrist. I didn't even do anything.

The cops couldn't get anything out of me and let me go back to class.

But precisely because the whole incident was so murky, I ended up in serious trouble at lunchtime.

The classmates who used to smile and joke with me started avoiding my eyes.

When I lined up in the cafeteria, people moved away like I was contagious. Wherever I went, a huge space formed around me.

My former dad, Jacob, used to be one of the school's biggest donors. I used to be on top of the world. Now, the fall couldn't be harder.

Whispers erupted through the crowd.

"Is that Natalie?"

"Yeah. She's the thief who stole Edwina's life. She goes by Natalie Gladwin now."

"How shameless! She lived the rich life for seventeen years, and now she's driven Edwina to suicide. And when Edwina was bleeding out, she just stood there watching—didn't even try to stop her."

"Seriously, how can someone be that disgusting?"

I clenched the tray in my hands. Being stared at and talked about like that—it felt as though I was standing in the spotlight. I felt like I was suffocating.

That was when a tall, sharp-looking figure appeared in the cafeteria.

It was Caleb Monroe.

The Monroe and Sutton families have been family friends for generations, so Caleb and I grew up together.

He was my childhood sweetheart.

"Caleb..." I called out to him. It wasn't because I had hoped he'd defend me. It was just instinct—when one was hurting, one would reach out to someone familiar.

Growing up, Jacob and Valerie were always busy with business, flying all over the country. They didn't spend nearly as much time with me as Caleb did. He filled the emotional gaps I had—in both family and friendship.

But Caleb frowned and took a step back in disgust. "Natalie, stay away from me," he said. "You drove Edwina to the edge. And now you're playing the victim? Who exactly are you trying to fool?"