The Only Thing I Wanted Was A Place In The Family Album Chapter 02

The Only Thing I Wanted Was A Place In The Family Album Chapter 02

Jonathan knew how much I wanted to move closer to the Hart house, how much I wanted to be nearer to them.

Seeing me smooth things over, he looked at me with a touch of pity and guilt in his eyes.

“Let’s continue the game,” he proposed, looking at me. “Amelia, you start this time.”

I was silent for a long moment. The girl next to me nudged my arm.

“Go on! Your brother is giving you a chance. You’ll definitely win this time!”

I held up five fingers and looked at Chloe. “I have seen the sunrise over the cornfields at four in the morning.”

Everyone played along, sighing sympathetically.

Chloe rolled her eyes and folded one finger, then immediately said, “I have gone with my whole family to Alaska to see the northern lights.”

Keeping a straight face, I folded one of my own fingers. “I have raised a three-hundred-pound pig.”

She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “I have had a planet named after me. It was a birthday gift from my mother.”

I lowered my lashes, my voice soft. “I have planned and arranged my foster parents’ funeral alone.”

She hesitated for a second, then clenched her jaw. “I have represented the entire Hart family at a charity gala since I was eighteen.”

Everyone fell silent.

At some point, the game had become just the two of us.

I held up my last two fingers, my voice flat. “At my thinnest, I weighed only seventy pounds.”

Chloe refused to back down. “I have two million dollars in my account and three beachfront properties.”

She was scraping the bottom of the barrel now.

I forced a faint smile. “I have never had a home.”

She put down her last finger. She wanted to say more but suddenly realized she had lost. Her expression turned ugly.

But just as she was about to pick up her glass, Jonathan stopped her.

“I’ll drink for her,” he said, and downed the glass.

Then he stood up, his face dark. He walked over to me and pulled me out of the lounge.

“Why did you say those things? Were you trying to get sympathy?”

“I know you had a tough time out there, but this isn’t the place to play the victim!”

My heart sank. Maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe it was just the overwhelming sense of unfairness.

But the emotions I had been bottling up finally burst through the dam.

“Chloe can brag about her life, but when I talk about mine, it’s ‘playing the victim’? How biased can you be?”

Jonathan’s face went completely cold. “She doesn’t know any better. Don’t you?”

“And here I was, thinking you were handling all this well, planning to help you move no matter what tomorrow. And then you pull a stunt like this?”

“Amelia, I haven’t let you suffer these past few years, have I? I’ve given you plenty of money, haven’t I?”

“What’s the hurry, really?”

My eyes widened. I stared at him in disbelief.

“So you think the only reason I want to come home is for the money?”