Chapter 2

And just like that, I was dragged back to ten years ago.

It was our first family trip to the beach—the four of us together.

Dad had Ethan on his shoulders. Mom was holding my hand, telling me not to go into the water.

I nodded and stayed on the sand, building a little castle by myself.

Then a wave rolled in, and someone shoved me from behind.

I stumbled straight into the water. Salt flooded my mouth. I started screaming.

Mom heard me. She ran without hesitation, grabbed me, and pushed my small body toward Ethan on the shore.

Then another wave crashed down. And she was gone.

Dad lost his mind trying to find her. He searched until it was dark, diving again and again, calling her name into the wind. She never surfaced.

When the lifeguards finally arrived, they said just a few more steps out was a drop-off. If she'd been pulled past that point, she wasn't coming back.

Dad cried the whole night. The next morning, he was different.

He stopped speaking to me gently. He wouldn't let me call him Dad anymore.

Ethan had been so scared that he ran a fever for three days.

He kept crying for Mom in his sleep, and Dad stayed by his bedside with red, swollen eyes.

When he saw me sitting nearby, biting my fingers because I didn't know what else to do, his anger flared.

He shouted, "Your mother told you not to go into the water. Why didn't you listen? You killed the woman I loved most. From now on, you are not my daughter."

I threw myself at his legs, sobbing, trying to explain that someone had pushed me.

He demanded to know who. And I went quiet.

Because I didn't know. I never saw their face.

That was the moment he gave up on me.

After that, he never held me again. All I got from him was distance and cold.

When Ethan recovered, the first thing he did was go to an orphanage and pick out a little girl who happened to share my birthday.

He and Dad poured everything they had into Bella.

As for me—who'd grown up wrapped in love and never learned how to survive without it—I became the help overnight.

I was up before sunrise every day, making breakfast. Bella was picky, so I had to cook separate dishes just for her, including the clam chowder she liked.

After breakfast, Dad would personally drive her to school.

I walked five kilometers each way, and I walked that road for years.

Whenever I felt like breaking down, I'd look at Mom's photo.

The last thing she said before the waves took her was to live well.

So I did for her. I held on until eighteen.

I was so close to being free. Just a little longer, and I could leave this house, build a life that belonged to me.

But Dad's cold words cut straight through me.

Mom, I might be coming to see you soon.

I must've looked out of it, because Ethan suddenly grabbed my arm and yanked hard. I lost my balance and hit the floor.

"Don't play dead," he snapped. "That dress costs a fortune. How are you planning to pay for it?"

Bella stepped up beside him, her voice soft and wounded. "Abigail, I've always treated you like family. How could you do something so disappointing?"

It took me a long time to find my voice. "Bella, it's not your dress."

I pointed at Dad on the stage, my hand shaking. "Dad gave it to me."

The word slipped out—Dad. The room shifted instantly.

"Wait, I didn't know Mr. Stewart had another daughter."

"I met Mrs. Stewart once. That girl actually kind of looks like her."

The murmuring grew louder until Dad finally walked toward me.

When I looked up at him, he grabbed my chin and forced my face up, his grip bruising.

"I told you not to call me Dad," he said sharply. "You don't deserve to."

A collective gasp rippled through the room.

The girl who'd been laughing at me earlier shrank behind Bella.

Dad's voice dropped, heavy and deliberate. "She was once my daughter. But ten years ago, when she caused my wife's death, I decided she was no longer part of this family."

Bella's friends stared at me with open disgust.

"You killed Mrs. Stewart?"

"No wonder she gives off such bad vibes. She looks cursed."

I stared at the man in front of me—at the complete lack of emotion on his face—and finally broke. "I didn't kill Mom. Someone pushed me—"

I never got to finish. His hand came down hard across my face. The sound cracked through the room.

"You don't get to mention her!" he roared, dropping the gentle public persona he'd polished for years.

It was the first time he'd ever hit me in front of other people.

My head snapped to the side. My cheek burned.

Through the ringing in my ears, I heard him say, calm again. "From now on, she is the maid of this household. Anyone here may instruct her as they wish."