They Told Me I Was Adopted, I Was The Real One All Along Chapter 01

They Told Me I Was Adopted, I Was The Real One All Along Chapter 01

The day I was diagnosed with leukemia, my first reaction wasn’t to cry. It was relief.

After all, I wasn’t their real daughter. If I died, I wouldn’t owe anyone anything.

When I was six, my sister and I fought over a stuffed bear. Mom dragged me into a corner and said each word slowly:

“You aren’t our biological daughter. Everything in this house is something we’ve given you out of kindness.”

After that, I never asked for anything again.

My sister wore new dresses. I wore her old school uniforms.

My sister took piano lessons. I washed dishes in the kitchen to earn enough for breakfast the next day.

I lived like a suitcase left in someone else’s house, always ready to be claimed.

After my diagnosis, the doctor said a bone-marrow transplant would have the best odds with a close blood relative.

I didn’t tell my family.

I secretly searched for my biological parents while putting the down payment on a cemetery plot with seven years of savings.

Until last night.

Burning with a fever of 102.2, I stumbled into the kitchen for water and heard my parents talking in their bedroom.

Mom asked, “Did we take it too far back then? Claire’s been acting more and more distant.”

Dad sighed. “We had no choice. Mia was adopted. If we hadn’t lied and told Claire she wasn’t our biological child, how would we have gotten her to give in to Mia?”

The glass slipped from my hand, rolled twice, and stopped by my feet.

So I was their biological daughter.

The girl they’d treated as their child for nineteen years was the one they’d adopted.

I stood outside their bedroom and laughed.

But my illness was already terminal.

…

“Why are you still up? What the hell are you doing out here?”

Mom shoved open the master-bedroom door and glared at me.

The dim hallway light made the disgust in her eyes impossible to miss.

I stood less than seven feet away.

A shattered glass lay by my feet.

I raised my head. The fever blurred my vision, but her expression was painfully clear.

She looked guarded, even annoyed that I’d disturbed her.

“My hand slipped,” I said softly, slowly crouching to pick up the shards.

Mom sighed and looked down at me.

“You’re always so careless. Your sister has a piano competition tomorrow. If you wake her up, your father will deal with you.”

Dad’s impatient voice came from the bedroom. “Forget it. Have her clean it up and get back to her room. She can stop blocking the hallway.”

Mom folded her arms and stared at me.

“You heard him, right?”

“Clean it up.”

She never asked why my face was so pale, or why I was trembling even while crouched on the floor.

I said nothing. I only closed my hand around the last shard.

Its sharp edge sliced through my index finger.

A bead of blood surfaced and fell onto the wool carpet, blooming into a dark flower.

My leukemia was terminal. My blood barely clotted anymore.

Soon, blood covered my entire palm.

Mom finally noticed.

But her first reaction wasn’t concern. She sucked in a breath.

“Claire Whitmore, did you do that on purpose?”

“That’s your sister’s favorite carpet. You got blood on it. Are you trying to show us how unhappy you are?”

I stared at the blood on my fingertips and felt a bone-deep chill with every breath.

Nineteen years.

Ever since they told me at six that I wasn’t their biological child, I’d been a thief in my own home, terrified of taking up space.

I was afraid to ask for new clothes, afraid to ask for spending money, even afraid to let myself imagine being sick.

I was afraid they’d abandon me.

But now I knew the truth.

I wasn’t a thief. I was a joke, robbed of every right by my own biological parents.

“I’m sorry.”

I pulled my hand back and clenched the bleeding finger in my palm.

“I’ll clean it.”

Mom snorted and slammed the door in my face.

I stayed in the hallway and wiped the blood from the carpet, one spot at a time, before returning to the tiny housekeeper’s room with no window.

On the hard cot, pain surged through the marrow of my bones again.

Three days earlier, in the hematology department of the city hospital, the doctor had held my lab results with regret in his eyes.

“Acute myeloid leukemia. Terminal.”

“You need a bone-marrow transplant as soon as possible. A close blood relative would be your best match. Do you have contact information for your parents?”

I’d held the thin sheet of paper and calmly shaken my head.

“I don’t have parents.”

I was an adopted orphan. Where would I find a blood relative?

So I gave up on treatment.

I had saved eighty thousand dollars from waiting tables and tutoring since I was a child. I used it for the down payment on a cemetery plot outside the city.

I still needed ten thousand for the balance.

If I lived two more months, I could save it.

But moments ago, I’d heard the most unbelievable lie of my life.

I did have parents.

There were two blood relatives under the same roof who might have been my best chance at a match.

But I didn’t want to use them anymore.

The next morning, I dragged myself out of bed through the pain and went to prepare breakfast as usual.

Mia Whitmore sat at the table in a brand-new designer dress, looking like a princess.

It was the dress I’d stared at through a department-store window for half an hour two weeks earlier.

Mom had said it was too expensive, and that someone who wasn’t family had no business wearing it.

Then she’d turned around and bought it for Mia.

“Claire, you look awful today,” Mia said, slicing into her fried egg with an innocent look.

“Did you sleep badly? You can have this milk if you want. I won’t finish it anyway.”

She pushed her half-drunk glass toward me.

Mom immediately came over and poured it down the sink.

“Claire, your sister was being kind. Did you really think you were fit to drink it?”

“If you pass some disease to Mia and ruin her competition today, can you afford to take responsibility?”

I watched the white milk swirl down the drain. My stomach turned.

“I’m full.”

I stood and didn’t look at any of them.

Dad lowered his newspaper and frowned.

“Sit down.”

“Your sister has a competition today. You aren’t going with her to carry her bag? Where do you think you’re going?”

I turned around. My voice was hoarse from the fever.

“I have somewhere to go. I need to stop by the organ-donor center.”

Mom gave a mocking laugh.

“The organ-donor center? What for? Do you think donating a little and playing the victim will make us think you’re responsible?”

“Don’t waste your time with this empty performance.”

I didn’t explain. I opened the door and walked out.

The sunlight stabbed at my eyes.

I stood on the curb and called the organ-donor center.

“Hi. I need to confirm something.”

“If someone has terminal leukemia, can her corneas still be donated?”