Hypocrisy

The admissions office calls and says my daughter's admission fee has been paid, asking when I'll come to handle enrollment. I'm completely stunned. My daughter, Natalie Steward, is top of her class. She's already guaranteed a spot in the city's best high school, Dream High School, with no admission fee required. Upon questioning my husband, Arnold Lewiston, he claims the admissions office must've made a mistake. He says, "I just wanted to surprise you, so I pulled some strings with the principal to get her into the accelerated track. You should talk to the teachers and make sure we get the best homeroom teacher so I can look good." As soon as I end the call, I slam the accelerator and head straight to the admissions office. On my way there, I call Lynn Warrens, my best friend who works in the State Department of Education. "Help me check under whose name Arnold paid the admission fee for his illegitimate child. I'm going to withdraw them from the school!" I say.

I suffer from a hereditary form of amnesia. By the time I found out, I had only seven days left. On the first day, I found my boyfriend had fallen for my younger twin sister. With a bitter smile, I suggested we break up. On the second day, my most treasured Lego set was smashed by my sister. Everyone laughed at me, saying I was disgraceful, unworthy of being a daughter of the Fleming family. On the fourth day, I forgot that my sister was allergic to mangoes. She ended up in the hospital, and my parents glared at me with resentment. Even my ex-boyfriend accused me of being heartless. On the seventh day, I woke up in a hospital bed to see my father walking in with a stern expression. He demanded that I quit my job and devote myself entirely to taking care of the family, as nothing more than a housekeeper. But I only looked at them in confusion and asked softly, “Who are you?” When they realized I had truly lost my memory, they lost their minds.

As the younger sister of the most powerful Alpha in the Southern Territory, I dated Damon, my brother's biggest rival for Alpha King, for five years without telling my brother and parents. We were in love for five years, and he gave me everything. He always tells me his wolf can't control its desire when it sees me. That's why he likes to have sex with me anywhere, anytime—even out in the wild, he doesn't care. But the day before our mating ceremony, I found out that my fiancé was dating me just to threaten my brother to quit the election with our sex tape. After knowing the truth, I decided to give up everything and leave, but my fiancé humbly knelt on the ground and begged me to come back.

A car accident leaves me unconscious for a full three years. When I wake up, my family bursts into tears of joy. They care for me with the utmost attention. But from their behavior, I sense something is wrong. There are women's clothes in the house that don't fit me. My mother's shopping cart is filled with mysterious baby items. My father's friends send congratulatory messages about a new child, and my husband is always working overtime. When my husband once again leaves me alone under the pretext that there is something urgent at the company, I secretly follow him. Inside a warmly decorated house, my parents and husband sit around a table. A woman who looks almost exactly like me is holding a baby just a few months old, gently coaxing the child to call my husband "Daddy".

My best friend's brother and I have been dating for half a year, and she has no clue. My best friend drags me out on Christmas for a singles' night out. Unexpectedly, we see her brother, Chris Lambert, holding hands and kissing a girl under the fireworks. "Damn, Chris finally got the school belle!" She looks thrilled and pulls me forward to say hi. Chris awkwardly rubs his nose and introduces me to his girlfriend, "This is my sister, and the one beside her is… sort of like my sister too." I smile silently. We have held hands and kissed, yet now, I am just sort of like his sister.

I had just become an adult when my neighbor, Connor Grayson, started flirting with me. We kept our relationship a secret year after year. After a wild night of intimacy, Connor whispered into my ear that he loved me over and over again. The next morning, I could barely stand as I got out of bed. Then I saw Connor bring another woman home. "Selena, this is my fiancée. We're getting married." I thought Connor would let me go. I didn't want to ruin anyone's relationship. However, he wouldn't leave me alone despite my shameful predicament. "Yes, I'm getting married, but did I say you could go? It took a lot of effort to make you fall for me."

A rich kid offers to pay anyone who'll be his companion to a ball ten thousand dollars. My roommate stops me from responding. "He's just a rich guy fishing for fun—he's using money to play around with women! Are you going to offer yourself to him for money? We can't be gold diggers!" My mother is sick, though. She needs my scholarship money to save her life. To my devastation, my roommate latches onto a school board member and takes away my scholarship. She even mocks me. "With your looks, you could've sold yourself for money. Here's a hundred bucks to compensate you." That's not all—an AI face-swapped picture of me are posted online. Countless people harass me because of them. My mother doesn't want to drag me down, so she takes her life. I break down and choose to jump off a building. When I open my eyes again, I'm taken back to the first day of the semester. The rich kid is looking for a female companion. I immediately say, "I'm the companion you've been looking for, sir!"

After my family went bankrupt, my fiancé, Thaddeus Blackwood, firmly broke off our engagement and chose Vivienne Winters instead. It was Sterling Knight who helped me clear my debts and arranged my father's funeral, rescuing me from financial ruin. For the next three years, he remained steadfastly by my side. Just when I believed I had found my salvation, I overheard a conversation between Sterling and his friend the day before our wedding. "Do you really plan to marry Arabella Frost? Aren't you afraid she'll eventually discover that you orchestrated her father's death and her family's bankruptcy?" "Vivienne has already married Thaddeus," Sterling replied. "I might as well marry her. And if she finds out, so what? I paid off her debts and gave her father a proper burial. I've done right by her." Only then did I realize that Sterling had deceived me too. From beginning to end, I was the only one truly invested in this relationship.

I never thought I'd end up severely injured and lose my baby on my wedding day. That day, I walked toward my husband full of excitement, only to watch him rush right past me and straight into the arms of his secretary. Confused, I turned around and saw someone in a wedding dress lying on the ground, blood pooling beneath her. It was his secretary, Quinn Fable. Steve York, my soon-to-be husband, panicked and scooped her up, but Quinn stared at me with tearful eyes, crying, “Summer, I ate the candy you gave me… Why would you want to hurt my baby? Please, Steve, save our child… please…” Steve was beside himself with rage. Without a second thought, he kicked me hard in the stomach. I collapsed into the champagne tower, shards of glass embedding into my skin. Blood poured from between my legs. Yet, they still clung to each other, crying bitterly as if I didn't exist. When the ambulance arrived, they didn't even hesitate to push me aside to save her first. “Forget about her!” Steve shouted. “Save Quinn! She's lost so much blood. She must be in terrible pain! As for Summer, that vicious witch… she deserves to die!” Due to the delay, I suffered a ruptured uterus and missed the window for proper treatment. And as if that wasn't enough, Steve personally announced that our marriage was null and void. He marched straight to the clerk's office with Quinn and made it official. On my ICU bed, I received a text from him. “Pack your things and get out. Quinn wants you out of her sight.”

My mother is in the late stages of cancer. Yet, she sits in a wheelchair with an oxygen tube and endures a long train ride just to attend my wedding with Isaac Pudley. But when it's time for him to walk down the aisle, I don't see him anywhere despite screaming his name. It turns out his childhood sweetheart, Megan Ericsson, is having another depressive episode and is threatening suicide again. "Isaac, I can't live without you," she screeches. Isaac is always so stern and composed, but he now holds Megan in his arms and begs me to call off the wedding so they can leave. Relatives and guests watch the spectacle with thinly veiled amusement. To make matters worse, my mother is so angry that she faints. However, Isaac believes that my mother is feigning illness. He only wants to take Megan with him and leave. He even takes away my mother's wheelchair. But he seems to have forgotten that he has hurt me 97 times by now. After he hurts me 99 times, I’ll definitely leave him.