When I went back to my parents' house for Sunday dinner, my mom was bustling around in the kitchen. "Chloe, the iPad is acting up again. Can you take a look?" While I was fixing it, a group chat notification popped up on the screen. The group name was [Happy Family]. There were six people in the chat: my dad, my mom, my older brother Ethan, my husband Liam, and my son Noah. And Mia, the adoptive sister who found her biological parents and moved out five years ago. I was the only one not in the group. The notification was a photo my mom had just sent—a plate of Spicy Szechuan Chicken. "Mia's favorite, hot out of the pan! When are you guys getting here? Chloe is sitting in the living room right now." My brother Ethan replied: "Didn't we agree not to invite her today?" Mia responded almost immediately: "Ethan, it's just dinner. Let her eat and then she can leave." My son, Noah, sent a pouting emoji. My mom wrote: "I'll make sure she leaves early after dinner. We still need to finalize our plans for the ski trip tomorrow." Liam, my husband, who had supposedly just run to the grocery store to buy cooking wine, chimed in: "Sounds good. I'll have her office call her in for an 'emergency overtime' shift tomorrow morning." Ethan liked Liam's message: "Good thinking, bro. You got her that job, and it's been five years, she still hasn't caught on." Five years. I had been called in for "emergency overtime" over two hundred times. It wasn't that my company couldn't function without me. It was my family, coordinating to exclude me. I scrolled up through the chat history. The group was created five years ago. They shared daily updates, inside jokes, and organized family vacations. I scrolled back to the year my postpartum depression was at its absolute worst. Noah was barely a month old. I suffered from severe insomnia, sitting by the window all night holding my crying baby. Their most frequent topic of discussion during that time was: "Chloe is being so dramatic. Keep her away from the baby, she's going to ruin his mood." And every time Mia sent a message, someone would inevitably reply: "I wish Mia was still living at home with us." "Did you read it all?" My mom walked out of the kitchen, her face freezing when she saw me holding the iPad. I locked the screen, looked up, and asked, "Mom, am I your biological daughter?" She frowned, setting the plate of chicken on the dining table. "Mia moved out five years ago. What's the point of digging up ancient history now?" I smiled, shaking my head, forcing the tears back down. "You're right. It doesn't matter anymore." …… I turned and walked toward the storage room. She called out behind me, "Dinner is almost ready! Where are you going?" I started packing the few belongings I kept at this house into a small carry-on suitcase. There wasn't much. One suitcase, and it wasn't even full. I had lived in this windowless storage room for half my life. When we were kids, Mia complained she was a light sleeper, so my mom moved my bed into the storage room that very same day. When Mia finally moved out, I thought I could move back into a real bedroom. My mom said: "Keep that room empty. Mia might want to stay over when she visits." It had been five years. Mia visited twice a year, staying two nights at most. Yet, my mom dusted that south-facing bedroom, opened the windows for fresh air, and changed the sheets every single day. My storage room had no windows, no lock on the door, and the lightbulb had been burnt out for three months. No one ever remembered to change it. I lived in this house for over twenty years, yet my presence mattered less than someone who visited for two nights a year. My mom pursed her lips tightly. "It's just a group chat. Do you really need to throw a tantrum over this?" I pulled up the handle of my suitcase. "You think this is just about a group chat?" "What else is it? Yes, Mia went back to her biological family, but she still grew up in this house. What's the big deal if she's in a family group chat?" As she spoke, she seemed to regain her self-righteousness. "Look at you, throwing a fit the second you walk through the door. How are we supposed to function as a family if you act like this?" A family. Her definition of "family" had never included me. When we were kids, if Mia wanted something of mine, she just took it. My mom would say: You're the older sister, be the bigger person. When Mia said she was a light sleeper, I was banished to the storage room. When Mia got accepted into college, my mom threw a massive, catered party for three days straight. When I was hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer, my mom told me over the phone that she was "too busy at home" to visit. I had tried fighting it. I had tried arguing. But every single time I stood up for myself, I was met with cold shoulders and looks of sheer disgust from the entire family. Seeing my silence, my mom frowned deeply. "You are the older sister. Can you stop being so petty?" "You're right, I'm petty." I started rolling my suitcase toward the front door. "I'm not eating dinner here tonight." My mom lunged forward and grabbed the handle of my suitcase. "The whole family is waiting for dinner, and you're just going to leave?! How is Mia going to feel?! She specifically told me to make your favorite dishes today!" I stopped in my tracks and looked back at the dining table. The table was overflowing. Eight dishes. Seven of them were heavily spiced, deep-fried, or covered in chili oil. Mia loved spicy food, and my mom remembered perfectly. A month ago, I had undergone a partial gastrectomy. The doctor's post-op instructions were printed in bold black and white: Strictly avoid spicy and greasy foods. She remembered that Mia loved spicy chicken. She remembered that Mia hated cilantro. She remembered exactly what time Mia liked to go to bed. But she completely forgot that her biological daughter had half her stomach surgically removed just four weeks ago. "Mom, look at that table. Is there a single thing there I can actually eat?" The muscles in my mom's face stiffened. It seemed she finally remembered. She looked away, refusing to meet my eyes. But her hand was still gripping my suitcase handle. "Let go." Her fingers slowly uncurled, one by one. I dragged my suitcase to the entryway, practically colliding with Liam as he walked through the front door, holding a bottle of cooking wine. He looked at me, then at my mom, and his brow furrowed in instant annoyance. "Are you picking a fight with Mom again? She's your mother, can't you just..." "Enough," I cut him off, dragging my suitcase past him. Behind me, I heard his lowered voice, speaking to my mom: "Just ignore her. It's her usual dramatic act. She'll get over it in a couple of days." Chapter 2 Liam probably didn't think I would actually leave. He chased me downstairs and grabbed my suitcase. "How long are you going to keep throwing this tantrum? It's not even a big deal, are you seriously going to do this?" Not a big deal. A family group chat they hid from me for five years wasn't a big deal. Over two hundred manipulated "overtime" shifts wasn't a big deal. Them casually discussing who would replace me while I suffered from severe postpartum depression wasn't a big deal. I looked up at his face, and suddenly realized I was looking at a complete stranger. For the past five years, every time I had a conflict with my family, he always took their side. He told me to be the bigger person, to be understanding, to let it go. I used to rationalize it. I told myself he loved me, and because he loved me, he wanted me to have a good relationship with my family. Today, I finally saw the truth. It wasn't that. He was exactly like them. Deep down, he genuinely believed that I was always the one in the wrong. From beginning to end, I was the only outsider. I didn't argue with him. I pulled out my phone, found the divorce agreement I had drafted months ago, and forwarded it to his email. "I sent it to your email. Sign it." He froze. "What?" I didn't say another word. I opened the door of a waiting Uber and went back to our apartment. An hour later, Liam walked through the door. He smelled faintly of expensive perfume. I was sitting at the dining table, the printed divorce agreement resting in front of me. "Sign it." He glanced at it, his brow furrowing in deep irritation. "You skipped dinner and ran all the way home just because of a stupid group chat?" He loosened his tie in frustration. "Fine, we messed up with the group chat. We'll delete it. Are you happy now?" I let out a short, hollow laugh. The front door clicked open. Mia walked in, holding Noah's hand. When she saw me, her face visibly paled. "Oh... sorry, Chloe, I didn't know you were home." Noah pulled his hand free and ran past her. "Mommy, don't be mad at Auntie Mia! She pretended to be my mom at the parent-teacher conference on Monday, so I invited her over for dinner tonight. My teacher says we have to show gratitude." I frowned, my chest tightening. "Parent-teacher conference last Monday?" Noah puffed his chest out proudly. "Yeah! Weren't you working overtime? Uncle Ethan and Grandma went, and thank god Auntie Mia was there too, otherwise the other kids would have made fun of me for not having a mom." I looked down at my phone. There had been zero notifications in the school’s parent portal last Monday. But my company’s management chat had suddenly reassigned me to a remote site inspection out in the suburbs that very morning. That was the day the mudslides hit. My car was crushed between two massive boulders. With the last 2% of my phone battery, I called Liam. He declined the call. I called my brother. He said he was busy volunteering for disaster relief in the next county and told me to "stop being so selfish." I called my mom. She told me to "just find a place to hide and wait for rescue." But during that brief phone call, I had clearly heard Liam's voice in the background. I thought I had hallucinated it from the pain and blood loss. Noah pulled Mia over to my usual seat at the dining table and urged me: "Hurry up and go make dinner!" Mia stood up smoothly. "I'll do it. I lost the instruction manual for the new kitchen appliances I bought you guys. I doubt Chloe knows how to use them anyway." She opened the kitchen cabinets with practiced familiarity. The doorbell rang. A delivery driver handed over a package. Mia signed for it. Inside was a stunning, ice-jade bangle that my mom had worn for thirty years. When I got married, I asked about the bracelet, and my mom told me she had lost it. Mia smiled at me apologetically. "Mom must have put the wrong address down for my birthday present... Oh, I'm so sorry, Chloe. I'm just so used to calling her Mom." Noah held up a handmade card. "Happy Birthday! Daddy got you a present too!" He covered his mouth and giggled, while Mia blushed and said thank you. I stood there, my breathing growing shallow. "It's Chloe's birthday today, too," Mia suddenly said, looking at me. Noah looked genuinely confused. "But Daddy said Mommy doesn't celebrate birthdays." Liam avoided my eyes. "You said you hated the hassle, so I didn't get you anything." I had said I hated the hassle, because every year on my birthday, I was reminded that it was the day I was stolen from my real family. But they took "hating the hassle" as a free pass to completely ignore me. The doorbell rang again. It was a small, branded box from my favorite jewelry designer. The sender was my brother, Ethan. I gripped the box tightly. In the next second, Liam's phone rang, and Ethan's voice blared through the speaker. "Did Mia get the gift? Make sure you hide it from Chloe, otherwise she's going to throw another jealous fit." Liam glanced at me. "She's right here." The line went dead silent for two seconds before Ethan hung up. Liam's Adam's apple bobbed nervously. "If you want something, I can have my assistant go buy you a gift right now." "There's no need." "You're the one who said you didn't want to celebrate your birthday. Everyone respected your wishes, and now you're throwing a tantrum over it?" He was gearing up for another lecture, but his eyes darted toward Mia. Mia took the hint, grabbing Noah's hand and leading him toward the door. "Let's go buy some juice, buddy." The moment the door clicked shut, Liam exploded. "If you wanted a gift, why didn't you just open your damn mouth and ask?! Do you think it's fun making the whole family constantly guess what mood you're in?!" I looked at him with absolute, terrifying calm. "So, did Mia have to 'open her damn mouth' to ask for that twenty-thousand-dollar holiday bonus?" Chapter 3 Liam's face instantly went rigid. "How do you know about that? Are you auditing me?" I laughed. "Auditing you? I haven't even mentioned how you've been manipulating my work schedule behind my back. That parent-teacher conference was a lie too, wasn't it?" His fingers gripped the armrest of the sofa so tightly his knuckles turned white. "You drained twenty thousand dollars from our joint family account. That money was specifically saved to take Noah to Disney World for his birthday." I thought I couldn't feel pain anymore, but saying Noah's name still made my throat tighten. Liam let out a heavy sigh, his tone softening slightly into a patronizing cadence. "I'll just pay for Noah's Disney trip out of my personal account. It's not like we're broke. Mia is your sister, what's the big deal with giving her some money for the holidays?" He glanced at the wall clock. "Noah and Mia can't wait out in the hall forever. Let's just drop this for today. Stop causing a scene, I have a massive board meeting tomorrow morning." I chuckled softly, reaching into my purse. I pulled out a printed bank transfer statement and slapped it onto the table. "Exactly how much money have you and my mother secretly siphoned from me? Do you even know whose name is on the receiving account my mom uses?" Liam's face turned completely black. "You actually dug into her financials?" "I didn't 'dig'. I just wanted to know who has been feeding off my blood, sweat, and tears all these years." From the day I was brought back to my biological family, I had never stopped working. My mom's birthday parties, her medical bills, the renovations on their house—I paid for every single cent of it. Over the last five years, every dollar I earned went straight into our joint marital account. And now, Liam was taking my money and handing it to Mia, and to Mia's adoptive mother. The woman who used to lock me in a woodshed for three days straight without food. The woman who left a row of permanent, raised burn scars on my back from a hot iron poker. Liam took a deep, irritated breath. "Isn't your money my money? If it wasn't for me, do you honestly think you would have even gotten that job?" He had no idea. When I accepted that job, the only reason I took it was because the office was a ten-minute commute from our apartment. To take that job, I declined an offer from a top-tier tech firm in Silicon Valley, which offered a starting salary thirty times what I was making now. "If you're going to be this stingy over twenty grand, I'll just transfer it back to you. Don't make this uglier than it needs to be." "You used my money to fund my abuser, and you're telling me I'm making things ugly?" I picked up my phone and dialed the bank's fraud department right in front of him. I barely got out the words, "I need to reverse an unauthorized wire transfer," before Liam lunged forward and aggressively snatched the phone out of my hand, terminating the call. "That transfer was documented as a voluntary gift! You have no legal right to reverse it!" He roared, his face red, before quickly attempting to de-escalate. "Noah knows about that money. You've already lost one child, do you really want to alienate Noah too?" I stood frozen, a bone-chilling cold radiating through my entire body. Our first child was murdered by Mia. When I was six months pregnant, Mia, blinded by jealousy, intentionally rammed her car directly into me in a parking lot. My entire family begged me not to press charges. When I refused to drop it, they offered a compromise: they would permanently kick Mia out of the family. They swore to me, tears in their eyes, that from that day forward, I would be their only daughter. In the end, I was weak. I caved. And on the very night they formally "kicked her out," they created that secret group chat. Perhaps noticing how dangerously pale my face had become, Liam softened his voice. "I didn't mean it like that. We'll delete the group chat. We'll all just take a step back, okay?" "That twenty thousand dollars doesn't belong to 'we'," I stared at him. "It's the money I earned myself. It's the money I saved up after I was finally brought back to my real family." "I said I'll pay you back." "When Mia killed our first baby, you said you'd 'make it up to me.' Is this how you make it up to me? By moving her into my house behind my back and letting her raise my son?" Liam's expression turned as cold as ice. "Are you absolutely determined to scorch the earth today?" I looked at him. I didn't say a word. He snatched the divorce agreement off the table, barely glancing at the terms. "If you really want to blow up our lives, I have no problem signing this right now." Chapter 4 I looked at him with a faint, mocking smile. "Finally dropping the act?" Liam looked utterly exasperated. He slammed the divorce agreement back onto the table. "This is your absolute last warning." My heart was terrifyingly calm. I knew it was truly over. I clicked the pen open and pushed it toward him. "Sign." He didn't take it. He let out a harsh scoff. "Don't think I don't know what you're doing. You're only acting this arrogant because you think you have leverage over me with Noah." I didn't respond, and I didn't look at him. Him and my son. I didn't want either of them anymore. The next day, I went into the office to process my resignation. The hallway was a disaster zone. My notebooks, my favorite coffee mug, and the pothos plant I had kept alive for three years were scattered across the floor. My project binders had muddy footprints stamped over them. The receptionist shrank back into her corner, terrified to make eye contact with me. Behind the glass walls of the conference room, Mia was sitting comfortably at my desk. A group of coworkers surrounded her, laughing and kissing up. I clearly heard someone call her "Mrs. CEO." She saw me, stood up, and strolled over. "Oh, hey Chloe. Liam said you didn't want to work here anymore, so I'm taking over your position." Just then, my mom and my brother walked out of the elevator, carrying stacked lunch containers. Mia practically skipped over to take them. "Home-cooked meals from family are the best! Takeout is basically poison." I stood in the hallway, a memory from a few years ago flashing in my mind. On my third day back at work after my miscarriage, I had ordered a simple chicken soup delivery. It arrived heavily garnished with cilantro and green onions, which the doctor strictly forbade me from eating while on my medication. I managed two bites before throwing it away, and starved for the rest of the afternoon. That exact same day, my mom had asked the secret group chat what kind of soup Mia was craving, and personally delivered a slow-simmered herbal stew to her apartment. It was only then that my mom and brother noticed me standing there. Ethan's face darkened immediately. "You ran off yesterday without a word, who exactly are you trying to punish?" My mom sighed and walked toward me. "Are you throwing a fit because we didn't make your favorite food? Just text me a menu next time, and I'll make it for you." Mia looked down at the insulated lunch bag in her hands, then walked over and held it out to me. "Here, Chloe, you can have this. I'll just order DoorDash." Ethan frowned. "Mom made that specifically for you." Mia insisted, trying to shove the bag into my hands. My fingers hadn't even brushed the handles when she suddenly let go. The container popped open, and scalding hot soup splashed all over the front of her silk blouse. She let out a piercing shriek. Liam just happened to walk out of an office at that exact moment. Seeing the scene, he charged forward like a bull, violently shoving me aside to scoop Mia into his arms. The back of my head slammed brutally into the sharp corner of a desk. My vision went completely black for a second, and I felt something warm and wet sliding down my neck. Liam didn't even glance back. He carried Mia in his arms and sprinted toward the elevators. Ethan chased after them, stopping just long enough to spit an insult at me. "What the hell is wrong with you?! What did she ever do to you?!" My mom didn't even turn her head as she hurried toward the elevator. "If you have a problem with me, take it out on me! Why are you attacking her?!" I gripped the edge of the desk and forced myself to stand up. The back of my head was throbbing with a sharp, pulsing agony. I wiped my neck; my hand came away slick with dark red blood. The surrounding coworkers scattered, keeping their heads down. I heard someone click their tongue, and another mutter, "Serves her right." I walked over to my computer, intending to transfer the master files for the core tech project I had been building for the last year and a half. The designated folders were entirely empty. Even the recycle bin had been permanently purged. Mia hadn't logged out of her WhatsApp on her computer. A voice message notification popped up on the screen. My hand hovered over the mouse for a second, then I clicked play. Noah's voice filled the air. "Mommy hurt Auntie Mia again today. I never want to call her Mommy ever again." Followed immediately by Liam's voice: "She was never your real mom anyway, buddy." Then my brother's voice chimed in: "After Chloe's miscarriage, she couldn't get pregnant again, so they did IVF. The donor egg was Mia's." My fingers began to tremble violently. I gripped the mouse so hard my knuckles turned bone white. No wonder Mia always crouched down to whisper secrets in Noah's ear. No wonder Noah always said "Auntie Mia is so much nicer than my real mom." No wonder Liam's go-to excuse was always "You have to be more understanding for the kid's sake." So everyone was actively paving the way. Building Mia up as his biological, true mother, and reducing me to the temporary "fake" mom. I was nothing but a surrogate incubator. A young HR intern walked over holding a cardboard banker's box, carefully placing it at my feet. "Chloe... HR said your exit paperwork has already been processed by Mr. Vance. You don't need to sign anything." I looked down at the box. My pothos plant was shoved inside, its broken vines drooping sadly over the cardboard edge. I bent down to adjust it. A heavy drop of blood fell from the back of my head onto the cardboard, blooming into a dark, rusty stain. I picked up the box and walked out. The midday sun was blinding, glaring harshly off the glass skyscrapers. I stood in the middle of that blinding white light, freezing cold to my core. I pulled out my phone and dialed a number I had saved years ago. "I accept your offer. I'm moving overseas to join your team."
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