Your Forsaken Daughter Will Never Come Home Novel – On my eighteenth birthday, I held the eight hundred dollars I had earned after months of washing dishes in the school cafeteria, my fingers still rough from the work. I asked my parents and my brother to have dinner with me at The Melting Pot, a fondue place I had saved up for, but in the end, they never showed. They went to Disneyland with my adopted sister instead.
The fireworks in their social media posts stabbed at my eyes. I couldn’t help myself. I called, wanting to demand an answer. Compared to my adopted sister, wasn’t I the one who was really their family? Before I could say a word, Chloe Harrington’s giggling voice floated through the line. “She doesn’t seriously think we’d go celebrate her birthday, does she?” “Does she really not know that she was just a baby Mom and Dad picked up from a hospital trash bin?” “Otherwise, why would everyone treat her worse than me, the adopted one?” In that moment, everything that had been weighing on my heart suddenly cleared, and I finally understood I had never been their child at all.
No wonder they had dumped me at my grandmother’s place in the countryside when I was little. No wonder they never liked me. Then there was no need for me to keep begging for that pitiful thing called family affection. I immediately filled out my application to the University of Oxford and bought myself a one-way ticket to the UK. I had no intention of coming back. *** After closing the application page, I finally had the time to look at the fondue spread on the table. The meal wasn’t cheap.
To afford it, I had spent more than half a year washing dishes in the school cafeteria. I ordered Mom’s favorite, a pot of rich cheese fondue with bread and vegetables. For Dad, I added the steak bites he always loved. I picked a seafood platter for Ryan—shrimp and scallops he could never resist. And for Chloe, I made sure to include the beef slices she ordered every single time. The table was filled with nothing but their favorites. When I finally picked up my fork, it hit me—I hadn’t thought about myself even once when I ordered. But it was fine.
Once I stopped begging for their shallow excuse for family love, I was going to learn how to love myself. Just like now. I realized that even fondue tasted fine when eaten alone. Even without anyone wishing me happy birthday, the cake was still sweet. And besides, the server gathered a few coworkers and sang for me anyway. That day, I wasn’t lonely. When I got home, they had just returned from Disneyland.
Mom’s expression stiffened for a split second when she saw me. Then she handed me a Disneyland plush toy. “Grace, this is your birthday present.” “I’m sorry. We were going to celebrate with you, but Chloe ranked in the top ten of her class this time. We promised to take her to Disneyland if she did well.” “So we changed plans halfway.” “You’ve always been such a sensible child. You understand us, right?” I looked up at the woman who, when I was very young, used to hold me in her arms, call me her baby, and say she couldn’t bear to part with me.
Back then, I adored her. I loved her so desperately it bordered on madness. I only wanted to come back to her side. But when I finally returned from the countryside, I discovered there was already another girl in the house. Mom began calling only her “baby.” Her arms were meant for Chloe alone. I used to feel jealous. I used to feel hurt. Now, all I felt was relief. It turned out that, just like Chloe, I was a child they had picked up. So it was perfectly normal that they didn’t love me. I nodded and said calmly, “It’s fine.
I’m not upset.” After that, I didn’t take the plush toy that Chloe had already thrown on the ground and stepped on in her social media photos. I walked straight toward my room. Behind me, Mom’s dissatisfied voice rang out. “We gave her a present. Why is she still acting like this?” “She doesn’t know how to get close to people at all. No wonder I don’t like her.” Chloe spoke up with a trembling, tearful voice. “It’s all my fault. I insisted on going to Disneyland.” Grace is definitely mad at me… If I’d known, I never would’ve said anything about getting a reward… I feel so awful…” I had only taken a few steps when a force from the side suddenly blocked my way.
Ryan Harrington shoved me to the ground like he’d lost his mind. My forehead slammed into the corner of the wall, pain exploding sharply. “Grace Harrington, apologize to Chloe right now!” “So what if we didn’t celebrate your birthday today? Did you really have to make the whole family miserable over it?” Ryan looked down at me with a cold sneer and spoke each word with deliberate cruelty. “You’re just an abandoned baby picked up from a trash bin. What makes you worth our time and effort to celebrate a birthday for you?”