Hypocrisy Biological Family Short Stories & Novels

I am the daughter of the Alpha of the Blood Moon Pack, my parents are very rich, but I have nothing. When black magic was eating away at me with a month to live, I asked to borrow ten dollars and they said I was "not worthy." I dragged my sickly body to buy the cheapest herbal medicine, but I saw them spending billions of dollars to celebrate my foster sister Vivian's 18th birthday. Tears streamed down my face, I just wanted to spend ten dollars on a piece of fabric and make my own ceremonial robe, even though I wouldn't live to be eighteen.

Mom and Dad have been divorced for ten years. One day, I come across a discussion thread. "Are all children of divorce having it hard?" I join the discussion. "Not always. Personally, I'm living pretty decently. After my parents' divorce, my sister and I were separated—one of us went to live with our paternal grandparents, and the other with our maternal grandparents. "For the last ten years, my parents have visited me once a year. Although they usually only stay for a few days, I can tell that they still love me." Within a minute, someone replies to my comment. "Girl, are you sure? My parents are divorced as well, but they can't bear to leave me at all. I've been with them since I was a kid. On weekdays, I stay with my mom. On the weekend, I go to my dad's. "Honestly, it's like they never divorced at all. LOL." I tap into her profile. The pinned post is a photo of Mom, Dad, and my sister, Hazel Foster. They hug her from either side. The caption reads, "A divorce can end a marriage, but it can't erase the bond we share. I'm glad I'll always be their precious baby." Meanwhile, this morning, Mom replies to me, "Your dad and I have been divorced for so long. Just get him to drop you off at college. It's awkward for me to be there." The next second, I receive Dad's reply. "Ask your mom. I'm a man. What do I know about things like orientation and college? I'll visit you someday when I'm free." I go back to the discussion thread and write back to Hazel. "You're right. Whether or not a child of divorce gets to live a normal life depends entirely on whether the parents still want their child in their lives." After closing the page, I open my email and sign up for an international volunteer program. My destination is a field hospital in a war zone five thousand miles away, where I will spend the next two years. There's no need for me to wait until Mom and Dad have time for me again. I'm never coming back here.

Ever since Mom loses the baby, Dad has been spending his time keeping his late classmate's wife company. So I take scissors to our family photos, cutting him out of every single one. When Mom receives a call from my school, she overhears me telling a classmate that my dad is dead and asking if I can borrow theirs instead. Mom freezes for a moment before admitting, "Yeah, he died young." When family sports day rolls around, Mom catches me slipping a ten-dollar bill to the school guard, begging him to pretend to be my dad for the day. Instead of stopping me, she quietly hands the guard 200 dollars, making sure he attends the parent-teacher conference with me. Whenever an event requires a father figure, Mom simply lets me rent one. Eventually, it dawns on Dad that he hasn't heard anything from us in a long time. He clears his entire schedule for the afternoon to pick me up from school, but my teacher stops him at the school gate. Dad heads back home in confusion. The second he steps through the front door, he overhears me speaking to the maintenance guy. "My dad's dead," I tell him. "Do you want to be my new dad?"

To shield my sister from a street thug's iron bar after she cut class, my right leg was shattered. The infection that followed left the doctors no choice but to amputate. From that day on, I spent ten years in a wheelchair. Consumed with guilt, my sister massaged my stump every single day. My parents wiped their reddened eyes and promised that everything they owned would go to me someday, to make up for what I had lost. Then my sister won the highest international ballet award, and the whole family wept with joy. Before the ceremony, she looked at my wheelchair. Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. "This is the greatest moment of my life. If a cripple tags along, what will the press write about me? "Dad, Mom, just this once, let the three of us go together, looking our best. Please?" My parents caved in the end. Before they left, Mom was afraid I might fall, so she lashed me to the wheelchair with hemp rope. "Be good, Audrey. I put all the knives and scissors away. Don't move around. We'll bring you back egg tarts from Belem." I sat obediently in the middle of the living room and watched the front door close, then heard the lock turn from outside. That night, the old electric blanket in the bedroom short-circuited and caught fire. The flames burned their way from the bedroom into the living room. I could not break free of the ropes. I could not reach the door handle. I could not find a single thing sharp enough to cut myself loose. The fire licked up my one remaining leg. The pain was beyond anything I had ever known. I sobbed through the smoke, begging my family to save me. They hung up. On the television, my sister stood in the spotlight, her smile radiant and dazzling.

Every month on the 15th is the day I swap lives with Melody Foster. 18 years ago, a hospital mix-up places our IVF embryos in each other's mothers. After the truth comes out, my biological parents want their real daughter, and my adoptive parents want theirs. They arrange for Melody and me to rotate between the two homes on a monthly basis, switching every 15th. From then on, I become the burden neither family wants. In whichever home Melody stays, there are endless snacks and drinks, thousands of dollars in monthly allowance, and the sunny bedroom is always reserved for her. In whichever home I stay, there's nothing but plain meals and a windowless storage room. 18 years later, I find out I have kidney failure, and Melody turns out to be a compatible donor. My adoptive parents toss me a form to sign away my right to treatment. "We raised you, and that's more than enough. Go ask your real parents for money. You're not getting our daughter's kidney, so don't even think about it." My biological parents fall to their knees, begging. "We know we've failed you, but losing you we can live with. Melody is our whole world!" Just then, I get a call from the hospital. "Sorry, we mixed up the records again. The one with kidney failure is actually Melody." Everything clicks into place. I sell the jewelry my grandmother left me, buy a camera and a full set of gear. From now on, I'll be a lone traveler, roaming wherever the road takes me.

My dad, Nathaniel Carter, was the richest man in town, yet my monthly allowance was only fifty dollars. Mom always told me that Dad had abandoned us because he was ashamed that I was a girl. When I was six, he left behind nothing but divorce papers and disappeared. I never saw him again. That was until I saw him on TV years later, making headlines for spending a billion dollars on a skyscraper for his new son. I had spent years resenting him. I was his child too. Why had he treated me like I never existed? Then one day, I unexpectedly ran into his new son. The first thing he said to me was, “Where have you been all these years? Dad has been looking everywhere for you.”

I need to drive to and from work due to a change in my job scope. However, my father-in-law hoards my car and refuses to return it. My husband stands up for him. "How can you be so materialistic? So what if you have to take an electric scooter to work?" So, I sell the car. My husband points at me and snaps, "What right do you have to sell Dad's car?" I look at him calmly. "I've sold the one you drive too."

The year my younger brother, Leo Mercer, comes into the world, I instantly turn from the apple of Mom and Dad's eye into a ghost. I remember how Mom used to stay up all night out of guilt just because a mosquito bit me. However, later, when Leo knocks over a pot of boiling water and leaves my back covered in blisters, her only priority is telling him not to blame himself. When I was 17, a fire accidentally breaks out at home, and Mom and Dad immediately carry Leo out of the house. I'm left behind and nearly burn to death before Mom and Dad finally remember they have a daughter. Even though I'm ultimately saved, I end up with a four-inch scar across my abdomen. Mom and Dad hold my hand, with tears in their eyes, as they explain that Leo has been diagnosed with uremia, and they took one of my kidneys without my consent and gave it to him. I take in the joy and gratitude in their eyes at having me back and foolishly believe that my sacrifices can earn me their love. Sure enough, when Thanksgiving comes in the year I turn 18, Mom gives me the first slice of pumpkin pie. I look up, pleasantly surprised, only to find cold calculation gleaming in her eyes. "Daphne, your brother only has one kidney. If he doesn't have a house, he'll never be able to find a wife. Now that you're 18, it's time you get married. We'll use your wedding gift to help him buy a house." Dad actually looks me in the eye for once. "We've already accepted the wedding gift. You're getting married tomorrow." My fingertips are reddened by the heat of the plate, and tears roll down my cheeks and drip onto the pie. At that moment, I finally realize that Mom and Dad aren't blind to my existence; they simply don't love me.

Ever since I was little, my mother, Cynthia, used me as a living cautionary tale whenever she wanted to teach my older brother, Oliver, a lesson. When Oliver bullied a kid at school, she made me shave my head and pick up trash so he could see what it was like to be humiliated and laughed at. When Oliver stole an action camera from an outdoor gear store, she made me kneel in the snow and apologize to the manager so he'd learn what shame felt like. Lately, Oliver had become obsessed with extreme sports and started messing with pills from who-knows-where. To make the lesson stick, Mom secretly mixed something that would make me throw up and a muscle relaxant into the vitamin capsules I took after breakfast every day. She figured a dose that small would only make me throw up and give me diarrhea, just enough to scare my brother. But I had a bad cold and had already taken cold medicine. The combination of drugs soon left me struggling to breathe. I collapsed on the rug, convulsing. Dad rushed me to the ER, but on the way, we hit a police checkpoint. He'd already passed the breathalyzer when Mom shouted at the officers, "You need to check him again! He's on sedatives. How did you miss that?" She pointed at me in the back seat, my face already turning blue, then jerked her chin toward Oliver. "See that? Are you ever going to swallow random pills people give you again?" Oliver burst into tears and swore he'd never touch those pills again. Only then did Mom look satisfied. What she didn't notice was that her living cautionary tale could barely lift a hand. Mom, you're always complaining that Oliver never learns his lesson. Maybe losing me will finally teach him the lesson you've been trying so hard to drill into him. Would that make you happy?

My sister came home three years after she went missing. But every time she saw me, she lost control and tried to kill herself. She blamed me for failing to protect her. My parents begged me with tears in their eyes. "Move down to the basement. We owe her this much. Don't hold it against her. Once she gets better, you can move back upstairs, okay?" I agreed. Seven years passed, and I slowly became invisible in my own home. Then, this Christmas, Mom finally invited me to celebrate with the family. I had barely picked up the knife to cut the cake when my sister suddenly screamed. I jumped up, but before I could react, my sister snatched the cake knife and slashed her own wrist. Mom lunged at me and grabbed my arm. "Who told you to pick up the cake knife? Don't you know she can't stand the sight of knives? Are you trying to kill her?" Her yank sent me tumbling down the stairs. Mom and Dad were too busy comforting my sister to hear my neck snap. As they crowded around her, I finally realized the truth. No one in this family cared if I lived or died.

As my murderer's claws tear into my abdomen inch by inch, my father and brother are seated in our family's banquet hall. They're celebrating Carly's 18th birthday and coming-of-age. "You'll always be my little girl." "Happy birthday, Carly." They light 18 pink candles for her. On top of the exquisite red velvet cake is a wolf figurine that they carved for her, and there are well wishes and laughter all around. Meanwhile, I'm curled up in a sewer filled with liquid silver as I bleed to death. My phone has been crushed, and I can't get out. I can only cry for help. A few days later, my father and brother show up together at the autopsy room. My brother stands by the operating table with a scalpel. He slices open the body and sews it back up like it's nothing. My father just covers his nose as he shoots a disgusted glance at my body. He urges my brother to hurry up with the autopsy report. "The victim is a young female wolf presumed to be of pure lineage. Before her death, she was subjected to prolonged captivity and torture. Her throat is nearly severed, her cervical spine is dislocated, and her chest cavity has collapsed. She was also injected with liquid silver before death." Hearing the report, my father looks so calm that it's just like a case study of no consequence. Neither of them can recognize that the body belongs to me—their daughter and sister!

A real heir who boasted of having watched 500 short dramas about real and fake heirs came to live with my family. He developed a high fever that wouldn't break during a torrential downpour on his very first night with us, earning endless sympathy from our parents. "I know every trope in those short dramas like the back of my hand. How could a villainous side character like you, who does nothing but throw tantrums, possibly be a match for me?" he bragged. After that, he drove the butler who had cared for me since I was a child back to the countryside. He also turned my closest cousin against me, so much so that my cousin slapped me in front of everyone. He trampled all over my dignity and became the apple of my family's eye within a year. He was just as dismissive when I got engaged to the young heiress from Kingsbridge. "It'll be easy for me to make her hate you. All I need to do is pull one little trick. You'll see!" During the engagement party, he pulled me toward the stairs and started shrieking, intending to accuse me of pushing him down the stairs. However, the triumphant look on his face morphed into shock when he lunged forward. He blurted angrily, "Are you kidding me? Who has a staircase painted on the floor?"

On New Year's Eve, I was kidnapped. My captors claimed they followed an ancient tradition. They planned to livestream a "Beast Hunt" to bring good fortune to the entire nation. The relentless blasts of fireworks swallowed me whole. I did not know how long it lasted before I dragged my nearly destroyed body out and escaped. When I found my parents, they broke down crying and rushed me to the best private hospital in the city. They swore to file charges and make the people responsible pay with their lives. My girlfriend of ten years, a lawyer, turned her face away. "The client and I are in a personal relationship. I am required to recuse myself, so I will not take this case." While I lay in my hospital bed, I scrolled past a trending post. [What was the biggest surprise you got this New Year's?] [My parents arranged a real live Beast Hunt just to make me happy.] [They hired people to kidnap the real son and blast him with fireworks all night long. You all saw the livestream, right? He screamed so hard it was pathetic. It is way more entertaining than any New Year's comedy special.] [And the funniest part? His lawyer girlfriend of ten years lied and told him she had to recuse herself and refused to take his case. She did it all just to keep me happy.] My fingers went ice cold. I could barely keep my grip on the phone. Every single detail lined up perfectly with the hell I had just lived through. Then the post updated again. [My parents already set up a fake death so I can disappear. They are taking me to Valterre to make it up to me with a private New Year's celebration, just the three of us.]

My sister is diagnosed with leukemia after a medical checkup at the hospital where I work. My bone marrow is a match for her. Out of curiosity, I tell my family I'm the one who's sick. They vehemently oppose to her donating her bone marrow to me. "A bone marrow donation is risky! We can't let your sister put herself in danger." "Don't drag your sister into this just because you're sick. Everyone's life and death is fated—you have to accept your destiny." My sister also refuses to help me, brushing me off with the excuse that she's preparing to conceive. My relationship with my family is strained, so their behavior thoroughly destroys it. When I realize this, I leave the diagnosis report behind and walk out on them.

Queenie Zeller, my sister, gets mad at Mom and Dad and sets off a gas canister in the house. They all make it out of the house unharmed, while I suffer severe burns all over my body and lose one of my legs to amputation since I'm fast asleep inside. Mom and Dad spend all day crying their eyes out, right up until Queenie comes home with a boy and a paternity test report. Overnight, I am reduced to the fake heir who's accidentally switched at birth. Just like that, half of the family's guilt vanishes. I barely scrape by until I turn 18. They all head out to the rightful heir's birthday banquet, leaving me lying in bed, twisting and writhing in pain. Mom and Dad are away on a business trip, so no one has helped me change positions for a long time. It has gotten so bad that the wounds on my back have become infested with maggots, making the itch unbearable. I try to turn over on my own, only to end up falling onto the floor. Suddenly, I hear a voice filled with suppressed anger carrying over from the balcony next door. "How long are you going to hide the fact that you fabricated the paternity test from your parents, Queenie?" Queenie snaps, immediately becoming defensive. "Shut up! I brought Nathan back because I wanted to keep our family from falling apart. Do you want me to tell them I lied because I felt guilty? "Where does that leave me, then? How am I supposed to stay in this family? I don't want all of us to spend our whole lives drowning in guilt over Henry! It's just a harmless lie meant to protect everyone!" I lie on the floor, frozen in shock. Is that lie supposed to protect me, then?

Ten years after my wealthy family took me back, I died in the rental house my billionaire parents had dumped me in. My son was three. Just to mess with me, the kidnapper gave me three chances to call for help. If even one person was willing to come see me, he'd spare my child. The first call was to my father, the man who'd spent fifteen years searching for me. He was busy directing the staff as they set up my adoptive sister's birthday party. When he picked up, he barked, "Estelle Emerson, seriously? Can you go one week without causing a scene? It's your sister's birthday. I'm busy. Don't kill the vibe." The second call was to my mother, the woman who brought me home and changed my name from Dixie to Estelle. But Vera snatched the phone and laughed so hard she could barely get the words out. "Estelle, seriously? If you're gonna make something up, at least make it believable. You look so broke you probably don't even have fifty bucks. What kidnapper would pick you?" The third time, I called Luca's father, my legal husband. He said he was in a meeting and didn't have time to play games with me. He also said that if I behaved myself, he'd agree to take me home for dinner next week. After the final call ended, I looked at the grinning kidnapper in despair and sent the last two messages of my life. A photo of myself covered in blood. And a short message, every word sincere. [I'm really going to die. In my next life, don't bring me home.]

Three years ago, on a full moon night, my mother jolted awake at midnight, claiming the Moon Goddess had delivered a prophecy: On the day of my twentieth birthday, the feral gene inside me would spiral out of control. I would shift into a wolf and kill my sister. At first, my parents were skeptical. But after I awakened my wolf at eighteen, my sister would seize up whenever she was near me, clutching her chest and collapsing to the ground in violent fits of gasping. To protect her and force my wolf into dormancy, my parents resorted to every harsh measure they could devise. They poured suppression potions down my throat that ate away at my organs, and clamped a restraining collar around my neck so my sister could keep me on a leash. Eventually, my wolf vanished completely. And somehow, I survived to my twentieth birthday. A flash of joy hit me, and I reached for the cake on the table. My father backhanded me so hard I went flying. "That feral gene in your blood really is impossible to tame! "If anyone eats first, it's your sister. What makes you think you can touch it?" Clara stepped forward as if to soothe things over, but my mother pulled her behind her back, eyes full of wariness as she edged away from me. Then my father dragged me up to the attic and bolted the door shut. Through the door, they said, "Stay put and get through tonight. The prophecy will be broken. "After this, we'll give you half the love we've shown your sister." I sank my teeth into my lip, not daring to make a sound. Years of the suppression potion had already hollowed out my body. My consciousness was fading, piece by piece. Mom, Dad, in that dream the Moon Goddess sent you, did she happen to mention this part? That the one dying today might be me?

In our tenth year of marriage, Sean Whitmore cheated on me with Sonia Sutton. He brought his Sonia’ son and daughter to see me. He said he felt sorry for the children. They needed a father. Our daughter begged him to stay, but he refused to change his mind. I didn’t fight to keep him. I took our daughter and left, and I never remarried for fear that a stepfather might mistreat her. Years later, my daughter married a good man. My granddaughter was adorable too. I spent my days caring for her, and life was happy and peaceful. On my sixtieth birthday, my daughter and son-in-law said they were busy at work, and my granddaughter had a last-minute tutoring session. They promised to celebrate my birthday the next day. But that evening, I came across a video filmed nearby. In a luxurious private dining room at a hotel… My daughter, her husband, and their little girl stood with Sean and Sonia’ two children. All six of them gathered around the woman he left me for and sang her "Happy Birthday." My daughter even called her "Mommy Sonia."

When my boyfriend came to my family home to ask for my hand in marriage, my sister-in-law, who was usually cold and aloof, became a completely different person. She flung her arm around me warmly and asked, “Cassie, who’s your favorite? This boyfriend or one of the dozen or so men that you’ve brought home before?” As I denied her accusation and interrupted her, she cheekily batted her eyelashes at my boyfriend and cooed, “Oh, yes, yes. Cassie has never brought another man home. You’re the lucky first!” In the midst of dinner, she deliberately took her own soiled underwear out of the bathroom, pinched her nose, and waved it around as she screeched, “Oh my goodness, Cassie! I know you don’t really care about hygiene, but we have guests today! How can you have no shame? It smells so bad!”

My brother, Graham Hart, was the villainous second male lead in a romance novel. After the female lead, Celeste Rodgers, faked her death, he spent every day thinking of ways to die for her. But before he could follow through, he got a call from my kindergarten teacher, Carly Rocha. "Are you Mila Hart's brother? Please come to the school. She keeps climbing into the aquarium and pretending to be a goldfish. She says she learned it from you. What exactly is going on?" After that, Graham didn't dare try to kill himself anymore. He had to set a good example for me. Then one day, years later, the school called him in because I had been caught dating a boy with bleached hair. As it turned out, the boy was Celeste's younger brother, Dylan Rodgers. When she realized who I was, Celeste smiled. "So Mila is your sister. Dylan may not be much of a student, but he's a good kid. I think he'd be perfect for her. Once our families are joined—" Before she could finish, Graham cut her off coldly, "You think becoming part of the Hart family is that easy? Tell Dylan to stop dreaming and stay away from Mila."