The Four Dolls Who Replaced My Family Chapter 10

The Four Dolls Who Replaced My Family Chapter 10

Three days after Julian left Southridge, the Sterlings went viral.

It started small. The local news segment never aired.

People noticed anyway.

One of the state’s top scorers, and her own family didn’t know where she’d gone.

Then a neighbor from the apartment complex gave an interview.

She said Eleanor had lived alone for a year. No one came when the AC broke. When the power went out at night, she’d sit in the hallway and cry.

Someone dug up the mall manager’s story too.

The top scorer’s mother had handed fake bills to her boss to put in her pay envelope.

The headlines were vicious.

[State top scorer pushed out by her own family, vanishes after a year alone.]

[Family throws party for one daughter while top-scoring sister disappears.]

I was eating dinner in the dining hall when I saw it.

My roommate glanced at me cautiously.

“Eleanor, is this… you?”

I looked at her phone.

The photo showed the apartment I’d left behind.

Peeling paint. Mold-stained curtains.

And the four plushies, still turned to face the wall.

I was quiet for a while. Then I nodded.

“Yeah. That’s me.”

She didn’t ask anything else. She just slid her extra piece of chicken onto my tray.

“Well, you’re eating with us now. So eat up.”

I blinked, then smiled.

“Thanks.”

The story blew up faster than I could’ve expected.

Someone at my dad’s company connected the dots.

His colleagues used to greet him with respect.

Now they avoided him in the halls.

In a meeting, someone said it with a mocking laugh.

“If Sterling can push out his own kid, one of the state’s top scorers, no less, how’s anyone supposed to trust him with a project?”

The whispers at work wouldn’t stop.

Favored one daughter, froze the other out, drove her away until she disappeared.

The story got uglier with every retelling, and before long, the biggest account on his desk got pulled.

My mom stopped showing up at her usual social events.

She used to love bragging about Tristan and Bella.

Now, every time she walked into a room, someone would smile and say,

“I hear you have a daughter who’s one of the state’s top scorers?”

“What kind of mother sends a kid like that away?”

Tristan wasn’t spared either.

He’d barely made the cut for Wellington, and his family had called him brilliant for it.

But now everyone knew.

The sister he’d dismissed as difficult had scored a 1520.

One of the state’s top scorers. Better than him in every way.

“Turns out he was never the smart one in that family.”

“No wonder he sided with the younger sister. Of course he was threatened by someone who outshone him.”

Julian got it worst of all.

On the North Crest student forums, someone found his old post saying he’d wait for me.

Then someone else pointed out he’d sided with Bella and talked me into leaving for a different city.

It spread fast.

Everywhere he went on campus, people stared.

Someone stopped him.

“Didn’t you say you’d wait for her?”

“So you waited, and she’s the one who left?”

Bella took it harder than any of them.

She broke down crying at school more than once, insisting she was fragile, insisting she hadn’t meant for any of it to happen.

But this time, no one rushed to comfort her.

They just whispered among themselves.

“Being fragile doesn’t give you the right to take over your sister’s life.”

“The top scorer got kicked out for a year while she lived in a penthouse. And she’s the one crying?”

I heard she had another panic attack.

The doctors said it was just emotional distress. Nothing life-threatening.

This time, my mom didn’t rush straight to Bella’s side.

She sat in the hospital hallway and FaceTimed me, her eyes swollen and red.

I didn’t answer.

Eventually, Julian brought the whole family to Southridge.

They were waiting at the campus entrance, arms full.

Clothes, a laptop, debit cards, a new family credit card.

The second my mom saw me, she started crying.

“Eleanor, please. We were wrong. I was wrong. Can you forgive me?”

My dad’s voice was raw.

“We’ll pay for everything. Tuition, living expenses, all of it. You won’t have to go through this again.”

Tristan kept his head down.

“I’m sorry.”

I looked at all of them. I felt nothing.

A late apology. Late gifts. Late love.

None of it was worth anything to me now.

“I don’t need it. My scholarship covers it.”

My mom grabbed my hand, crying.

“But we’re family.”

I pulled my hand free.

“Not anymore.”

She went still.

I looked at each of them and spoke slowly, making sure every word hit.

“The day you put me in that apartment, we stopped being a family.”

“The day you told me I couldn’t go to Kingsport, you made sure of it.”

I turned and walked back through the gate.

Behind me, I could hear my mom sobbing and voices calling my name.

I didn’t turn around.

I didn’t need anyone to lift me up before I could soar.

I’d do it alone. And I’d go higher than any of them could have ever imagined.