I Changed My Name and My Fate Chapter 02

I Changed My Name and My Fate Chapter 02

My son Toby Sterling held a drawing up to the camera — lopsided flowers everywhere, and a round little blob of a person right in the middle.

“Mom, this is for you,” he piped up. I pulled the phone closer, grinning. “And who’s this grumpy bear right here?”

Toby scrunched up his nose. “It’s Dad!”

The camera wobbled, and then Alexander Sterling’s face slid into frame, Toby still squirming in his arms.

He looked at the drawing and didn’t miss a beat. “I’m not a bear.”

Toby threw his arms around Alexander’s neck. “Dad is a grumpy bear!”

I laughed — a real one this time. Whatever cold Julian had dragged into my afternoon, these two were burning through it fast.

Alexander’s eyes lingered on me a second too long. “What happened?”

I didn’t answer. He knew me too well.

My silence was always the tell. The quieter I got, the deeper it cut. “Did someone from the Thornes show up?”

A soft sigh slipped out of me. “Julian.”

A beat of silence on his end. “Do you need me to deal with it?”

“No. I’ve got it.”

He nodded. “We land mid-morning tomorrow.”

“Grandpa’s coming too. My mom, my dad — everyone. We’re not leaving again.”

That stopped me. “For real?”

“Yes!” Toby cut in before Alexander could answer. “Mom, I wanna live right next to the flower shop!”

Alexander gave the back of his neck a squeeze. “Not happening. Your mom’s gonna kill you when you start ripping out all her flowers.”

Toby kicked his legs and pouted.

I watched them wrestle over the phone, and my throat went tight.

Years ago, I’d collapsed in the street in the dead of winter.

Rain pouring down. The Thornes had kicked me out, Chloe’s mom had smashed my phone, and the house staff had thrown my ID and wallet into a ditch.

The fever was so bad my vision blurred. I was huddled under a bridge when I heard someone calling my name.

It was Grandpa Vance. He was family on my grandmother’s side, and he’d been searching for me for years. He never imagined that by the time he found me, the Thornes would have nearly killed me.

When I opened my eyes in the hospital, Alexander was beside the bed. He didn’t waste words. “Do you want a fresh start?”

My throat was so wrecked I couldn’t get a word out. I just nodded.

He disconnected my old phone number and helped me take my name back. Vance.

Grandpa gave me the flower shop. Alexander gave me a home.

People assume rich families are all about power games. The Sterlings taught me I didn’t have to earn my place at the table.

That being wronged didn’t mean I had to destroy myself proving I’d been wronged. That love wasn’t something you earned on your knees.

Alexander watched me through the screen. “It’s over, Eleanor. All of it.”

I heard him, but part of me had already drifted back.

The day I first walked into the Thorne house, I was wearing a faded white dress and carrying a canvas bag from the county foster home.

Chloe’s mom looked me up and down and frowned. “God, you’re skin and bones. Stand up straight.”

Chloe stood behind her in the pink dress they’d originally bought for me. “The princess bedroom is Chloe’s,” her mom said.

“She’s fragile — switching rooms would mess up her sleep.” So they put me in the attic. The storage room.

The ceiling leaked. Mold climbed the corners of the walls, and at night I could hear rats scratching behind the cardboard boxes.

I pulled the blanket around myself and curled up at the edge of the mattress, whispering that my real parents just needed time. A little more time.

But time didn’t fix anything. Chloe planted a necklace in my backpack. Her mom slapped me for stealing it.

Her dad grounded me indefinitely. And Julian — Julian stood right there and said Chloe would never lie.

Every tear Chloe shed cost me something. She cried, I took the fall. She got sick, I took the blame.

It took me a long time to learn the lesson. Once someone decides you’re the problem, no amount of truth will change their mind.

Alexander’s voice pulled me back. “Hey. Where’d you go?”

I swallowed it all down. “Just thinking about picking you guys up tomorrow.”

Toby mashed his face against the screen. “Mom has to hug me first.”

“Deal,” I said.

Alexander raised an eyebrow. “You have to hug me, too.”

Toby slapped a hand over Alexander’s mouth. “No stealing her!”

I was still smiling when I hung up. Outside the shop windows, the sky had gone dark.

I scraped the last of the rotted soil from the bellflower pot into a black bag. Harper glanced over. “Want me to toss it?”

“Get rid of it. I don’t want it anywhere near the new ones.”