Chapter 1

"Lily worked her butt off for a whole year to get into STEM. They only chose five kids, Mark—five!"

"Elena, calm down." Mark frowned, lowering his voice. "Grace suffered so much at the orphanage, and she's finally willing to step out and try socializing. The choir deadline is this week. If we don't pay now, she'll miss the opportunity completely."

"And what about Lily? Tomorrow is the last day for Lily's spot too!" My voice couldn't help but tremble. "You promised her!"

"Lily is only eight!" Mark stood up, his tone carrying an unquestionable stubbornness. "She has a cheerful personality and plenty of friends at school. She can join the science club next year, but Grace is at a sensitive psychological stage right now. We can't be this selfish!"

"Selfish?" I looked in disbelief at the husband I had lived with for nine years. "You’re stripping your own daughter of her future just to humor someone else’s child, and then you're accusing us of being selfish?"

"There's no way around it, our family's finances just can't support the expenses for two kids."

Mark looked completely helpless.

Grace, who had been standing beside us silently with her head down, suddenly sobbed, large tears falling onto her lower legs.

" Mark... Elena... please stop arguing." Grace's voice shook violently, her hands tightly twisting together.

"It's all my fault. I won't go to the choir."

"I'll just stay in my room. After all... I'm just an outsider nobody cares about anyway."

With that, she covered her face, crying as she ran toward the second floor.

"Grace!" Mark grew anxious.

He shoved the table aside, passing right by us without offering Lily another glance. He pulled out the credit card from his wallet—the limit that originally belonged to Lily's science club—and chased upstairs without looking back.

"Grace, you're not an outsider! This is your home, and I fully support you. Don't cry, sweetie."

Mark's gentle, comforting voice echoed down intermittently from the second-floor hallway, stabbing into my heart like a dull knife.

I slowly squatted down, looking at my daughter pressed tightly against my leg.

Lily didn't cry, nor did she scream in frustration.

She just quietly looked at the form in her hand that she had treasured like a prize, and right in front of me, she folded it once, folded it twice, and gently tore it into pieces.

"Lily..." My heart throbbed with pain, and my eyes instantly turned red. I pulled her tight into my arms. "I'm sorry, sweetie. I failed you."

Lily patted my back with her small hand, her voice terrifyingly calm:

"It's okay, Mom."

She pushed out of my embrace, returned to her room, and opened her old scrapbook.

Peeling off the backing paper, flattening it, and sticking it down.

The 28th black butterfly sticker covered all her expectations at eight years old.