Chapter 30
Before the accident, my parents were working on a medicine for heart disease. They were about to succeed and wanted to sell it at a low price.
But news of this made some drug dealers angry.
One early morning, someone set fire to their lab.
The day it happened was December 1.
My parents stayed up all night in the lab because they wanted heart patients to get the new, cheaper medicine before Christmas.
When my brothers and I got the news and rushed over, all we found were two burned bodies.
That was my last memory of my parents.
Even now, I still had a hard time remembering what their faces looked like.
Along with my parents, a student in her early twenties also died in the fire.
She had just got married, and her baby was less than a year old when the accident happened. Her husband had already passed away.
When they found her body, it was burned badly, but she was still holding on to a necklace with her daughter’s name engraved on it.
It took Ruben and Mason six years to finally find that little girl in an orphanage.
Life could be strange sometimes.
Half a year after the seven–year–old Lacey came to live with our family, I went out with a classmate to eat at a street food stall.
And I ran into the director of that orphanage. In his drunken state, he broke down in tears and blurted out the truth.
It turned out that the real Lacey had died in the orphanage from heart disease when she was only three years old.
The girl who was sent to us was an orphan with liver problems who didn’t have money for treatment.
The director felt bad for her, so he let her pretend to be the deceased Lacey, hoping my brothers would help her get better.
When I rushed home, I saw Lacey breaking my stuff again.
It was a family photo of all five of us when my parents were still alive.
The frame fell to the ground, and the glass broke into pieces.
Just like so many times before. Lacey squatted down to pick it up, then held up her hand, which was cut, looking pitiful and wanting Ruben to comfort her.
I was so furious that I yanked her away and, without thinking, shouted, “Get out!”
This was the first time Ruben had ever looked at me
with an angry face.
Mason, who was always gentle and quiet, also looked disappointed.
“Grace, you need to stop being so spoiled and rude.”
I blurted out everything that had been said to me.
Then I saw the panicked look on Lacey’s face.
I thought at least her illness had been cured.
An impostor shouldn’t keep taking over my home and my brothers or breaking my things over and over again.
But all I got in return was Ruben’s angry scolding.
“Grace, can’t you tolerate Lacey at all?
“She is the only child and the last concern of the student our parents. valued most before they passed away.
“Don’t you feel guilty for making up these stories?!”
After that, there was no peace between us.
A month ago, Lacey did the same thing again and broke the medical research trophy I had just received.
I chased her to the stairway and, in a fit of anger, slapped her.
She deliberately fell down the stairs. I tried to grab her and ended up falling with her.
My arm was injured, and I struggled to get up.
Before I could say anything, Ruben slapped me across the face for the first time.
Mason, who had always been gentle and quiet, exploded in anger.
“Grace, get out if you can’t live with us!”
They took Lacey to the hospital and left me, who was also injured, behind.
The aurora that they had promised to watch with me ten years ago had now become a trip with Lacey instead.
