I Begged The Real Heiress To Take My Life Away Chapter 11

I Begged The Real Heiress To Take My Life Away Chapter 11

By the time we reached the old Sterling mansion, night had already fallen.

A single small light glowed inside the glass greenhouse.

Josie stood at the edge of the terrace.

The wind whipped at the hem of her clothes.

Eleanor stood a distance away, face drained of color.

Weston’s voice came out tight.

“Josie, come down from there.”

Josie laughed.

“What are you all so scared of?”

“Scared the headlines tomorrow will say the real Sterling heiress jumped off a roof less than a week after

coming home?”

Eleanor’s voice shook for the first time.

“Josie, don’t say things like that.”

My heart was racing, palms sweating.

Sebastian grabbed my arm.

“Don’t go over there. Don’t set her off.”

I nodded, then took a step forward anyway.

Josie’s eyes turned sharp the second she saw me.

“Why are you here?”

“To watch the show,” I said.

Sebastian: “.

Eleanor: “…”

Even Josie froze for a second.

I kept going.

“Didn’t you say I’d be living in nightmares?”

“I figured I should get a closer look. Make the nightmares more realistic later.”

She let out a furious laugh.

“Daisy Sterling, are you insane?”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding.

“Growing up at the Sterling house does that to a person.”

Josie stared at me, and tears suddenly spilled down her face.

“Why are you always like this?”

“Playing dumb, playing pitiful, acting like nothing’s wrong.”

“You clearly won.”

I shook my head.

“I didn’t win anything.”

“If getting switched at birth is some kind of contest, both of us lost the moment we were born.”

She went still.

I walked closer, slowly.

“You want the Sterlings’ love. You want them to admit you’re exceptional.”

“I want the Doyles’ ordinary days. I want nobody to ever call me stupid again.”

“But neither of us actually got what we wanted.”

“You come back and the Sterlings groom you as the future heir.”

“I go back to the Doyles and you decide I stole your parents.”

“Josie, have you noticed?”

“We’ve been fighting over something that was never fully ours to begin with.”

She cried even harder.

“So what am I supposed to do?”

“I worked myself to the bone for eighteen years.”

“I can’t lose.”

“If I’m not exceptional, nobody’s going to want me.”

That sentence hit me square in the chest.

I understood it completely.

I was terrified of being unwanted by the Sterlings if I wasn’t good enough.

She was terrified of losing the whole world if she wasn’t good enough.

I said:

“Who says nobody wants you?”

“Mom and Dad Doyle want you.”

She shrieked.

“They want the old obedient Josie from before!”

“Not this jealous, twisted, grits-throwing lunatic I turned into!”

I stayed quiet a second.

“Then go apologize to them.”

She fell apart.

“You think an apology fixes anything?”

“It does.”

I said it dead serious.

“At the very least, you owe my dad for the burn cream.”

Josie: “…”

I kept going.

“And that bowl. Three-fifty.”

I pulled a paper-wrapped biscuit out of my pocket.

“My dad made it.”

“I was going to eat it on the way, but I couldn’t bring myself to.”

“It’s got meat in it.”

Josie stared at the biscuit, and the tears came harder.

“Will he still make these for me?”

“He will.”

“He got burned today and still said Josie probably didn’t mean it.”

“My mom talks trash about you out loud, then goes and cleans out your old room in secret at night.”

“She says if you come back, the sheets need to be new.”

Josie covered her face, sobbing so hard she could barely breathe.

“I don’t deserve any of it.”

“Whether you deserve it or not is something you have to ask them yourself.”

“You can’t just leave them waiting forever with a set of new sheets, can you?”

She finally climbed down from the edge of the terrace.

Eleanor’s knees buckled, and she nearly went down.

Weston caught her.

Sebastian looked at me with an expression too deep to read.

I pushed the biscuit into Josie’s hands.

“Eat.”

She took a bite.

Cried even harder.

“It’s good.”

I let out a breath.

Still knew it tasted good.

Meant she hadn’t completely lost herself.

That night, Josie went home.

To the Doyles’.