My Family Played Poor While Spoiling My Sister? Sorry, I’m the Real Heiress! Chapter 02

My Family Played Poor While Spoiling My Sister? Sorry, I’m the Real Heiress! Chapter 02

I woke with a sharp stinging sensation radiating from the needle puncture on my forearm. I stared blankly at the empty hospital room until a soft laugh echoed from the doorway.

“You passed out after giving blood, and a nurse had to wheel you in here. Did you really think Mom and Dad would stay to babysit you?”

Harper rolled forward in a wheelchair, her smile saccharine but her eyes cold.

“They’re lined up at the bakery downstairs buying salted caramel pudding for me. I mentioned craving it casually, and they rushed over instantly. Unlike you—you nearly drained yourself dry, and not a single person bothered to ask if you were even okay.”

I pushed myself upright and shot her a calm glance. “Enjoying your stolen life in another person’s home? Don’t forget you’re only adopted. What if your real parents ever track you down and want you back?”

Harper’s face stiffened. Her nails dug into the wheelchair armrest before she forced her fingers loose. “Do you honestly believe blood ties define everything, Lorelei?”

She lowered her voice, speaking each syllable slowly. “Let me tell you the truth. The Myers family has always been wealthy. That full suite of Apple products everyone saw? It wasn’t secondhand hardware from a rich student I tutored. Dad bought it for me as my SSAT graduation gift.”

“I got into elite private prep school not because of perfect grades. Mom decided an elite private education was what I deserved.”

“They’ve been pretending to live paycheck to paycheck just to keep you in the dark. Why would I risk leaving this mansion life to hunt for birth parents? What if they’re dirt poor?”

The hospital door slammed open before she finished speaking.

A middle-aged couple burst inside. The woman’s face was lined with exhaustion, her eyes flooding with tears as she grabbed Harper’s hand. “My girl! I finally found you!”

Harper flinched away. “Who are you?”

“We’re your birth parents, sweetheart. Don’t you recognize us?”

Footsteps thundered down the hallway. Daniel and Nadia Myers pushed through the crowd, positioning themselves protectively in front of Harper. “Step away from our daughter!”

The couple glanced toward my parents, overcome with gratitude. “You must be the kind people who adopted our daughter. Thank you for raising her for eighteen years!”

They turned back toward Harper. “Honey, why won’t you acknowledge us? Have you gotten used to city life and don’t want to move back to the countryside?”

“Don’t worry. We don’t have much money now, and our house only has a shared outdoor outhouse, but we’ll scrape together every cent to support you.”

“The government gives aid to low-income households like ours. We’re about to build a brick house. We’ll save a spacious south-facing bedroom just for you. You can share a room with your older brother for now…”

Harper studied the pair carefully. Their patched clothing and mud-caked shoes made her shudder violently. “You’ve mistaken me for someone else!”

“It’s no mistake!” The man trembled with emotion. “You have a tiny red mole behind your right ear and a coin-sized birthmark on the inside of your calf. On the day you went missing at three, you wore a pink floral dress with a little rabbit your mother embroidered along the hem!”

“Shut up!” Harper screamed. The details he described matched the hazy fragments of her memory. She could picture her perfect heiress fantasy crumbling to dust. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “I don’t know you. You’re human traffickers! Mom, Dad, make them leave!”

My parents exchanged a glance, instantly grasping the situation.

They stepped forward and shouted firmly. “You have the wrong person. Harper is our biological daughter.”

“That can’t be!” The couple grew frantic. “We read local news reports! You adopted a missing girl all those years ago. The ages match perfectly—it’s her!”

By now, onlookers packed the doorway.

One patient pulled up an old news article on his phone and gasped. “It checks out! Local news from eighteen years ago confirms they adopted a lost child!”

A tide of murmurs washed over us. Harper cowered against Mom, shaking uncontrollably.

Mom pulled her tightly into an embrace. Realizing the crowd was turning against her, she took a steadying breath. “It’s true. We did adopt a daughter once.”

“Since you’ve traveled all this way searching, I won’t keep hiding the truth.” She paused, then pointed straight at me on the hospital bed. “Our eldest daughter, Lorelei, is the child you lost eighteen years ago.”