Chapter 3

The lights next door were bright, and the sound of their laughter and chatter was grating on my ears.

They were gathered around a table, raising their glasses to celebrate finally having the whole family back together.

I clutched my thin jacket tightly around me, biting my lip.

I thought of the version of myself I had seen in the water. She was frail and pale. The cancer had taken her hair, along with her will to live.

There was no light left in her eyes, and only despair and numbness were in them. She was barely any different from a corpse.

In the water, I couldn't help but pull her into my arms. And as I held her, I clearly felt all the painful memories she carried.

Those memories, set against the warm, harmonious scene next door, were even more suffocating than the lake water that had consumed me.

I was their daughter too. And yet, they had been the ones to send me straight to my death.

Right then, Mom's voice reached my ears. She sounded incredibly gentle. "We can finally all live together now. You've had it so rough these past few years."

I quickly looked away, not wanting anyone to see the expression on my face.

When I was finally brought home, battered and bruised after being swapped by Suzanne's parents, they had never once said, "You've had it so rough."

Instead, they had been entirely focused on packing treasure after treasure into the luggage of the Suzanne they were supposedly sending away.

And after she left, they hardly ever treated me kindly.

Back then, having only just reunited with them, I assumed they were just busy running a massive corporation and were naturally stoic, emotionally unavailable people. But today, I finally learned that my parents were capable of love.

Their love could probably fill a whole ocean and still have plenty left over. I just happened to have never received any of it.

I was about to leave without looking back when I heard a voice behind me. "Danielle, come here. I want to show you something."

I looked up to see Mom's smiling face. I dragged my feet as I followed her into their home.

Mom stuffed a few photos and files into my hands. "Since Suzanne has gotten such a great fiance, we wanted to make things fair and picked out a few good candidates for you, too. Take your pick.

"You can't say we're playing favorites this time."

According to the memories of my older self that I saw underwater, after I got engaged to the son of the prestigious Klein family, Mom and Dad secretly found an even better match for Suzanne so she wouldn't feel bad.

I found out, threw a fit, and demanded they not give Suzanne anything better than what I had.

So, after carefully searching, Mom and Dad found her a researcher who was incredibly talented.

And, egged on by Mom and Dad, Suzanne stole radioactive ore from the researcher's lab, which ultimately gave me cancer.

I skimmed through the files in my hand.

Even if I combined all the men Mom and Dad picked for me together, they still couldn't hold a candle to that researcher.

Dad hemmed and hawed before speaking up. "Danielle, there's no need to rush your decision. Since Suzanne is marrying into a prestigious family like the Kleins, we obviously have to prepare a very generous wedding gift for her.

"How about we give her all our cash as her wedding gift first? And we can figure your gift out later."

To my parents' surprise, I didn't have a problem with that. "Sure. Give everything you have to Suzanne then."

Suzanne's eyes lit up, the greedy look on her face plain as day.

I couldn't be bothered to watch their little act anymore. I turned around, went back to my room, pulled out my suitcase, and started packing.

As I gathered my belongings, I suddenly realized something. Mom and Dad weren't the only ones who barely had any belongings in this house.

I had hardly anything to call my own. I smiled bitterly. Maybe this was for the best. It made deciding to leave feel less like a loss and more like a clean break.