Chapter 7

A suffocating silence descended upon the room.

My parents stood frozen. Chase looked like he had been struck by lightning.

Mom stared at the hysterical woman before her, realizing with absolute horror that they had personally bred a soulless, cruel monster. She collapsed against Dad, sobbing so hard she could barely breathe.

"She's right... We did this."

Mom lifted her tear-streaked face.

Through Stella's sneering visage, she seemed to see the ghost of the little girl who had spent the last decade quietly chewing on bitter strawberry stems in the kitchen corner.

"From the very beginning, we were wrong to force Elena to yield. She was our biological child. She suffered so much before we found her, yet we never gave her a single day of peace."

"When you were little, you threw a tantrum because you wanted the sweet tips of the strawberries. To save ourselves the headache, we forced Elena to eat the sour green bottoms and give the best parts to you."

Mom buried her face in her hands, agonizing sobs slipping through her fingers.

"We failed her. We showered you with unconditional indulgence at the cost of our own daughter's dignity. We broke Elena's heart, and we turned you into a monster with no empathy."

Stella was stunned into silence.

She couldn't comprehend how, in just under an hour, a runaway bride could flip her parents' lifelong devotion into absolute disgust.

Chase couldn't stand being in that room for another second.

He wasn't stupid.

He saw the truth laid bare before him. He saw his own cowardice, his own vanity, and how he had willingly become an accomplice in breaking the woman he claimed to love.

He spun on his heel, desperate to track down Elena.

Stella lunged forward, throwing her arms around his waist, sobbing uncontrollably:

"Chase, don't leave me!"

"Mom and Dad hate me now because of her! Are you going to abandon me too?!"

Chase looked down at the hands clutching his jacket.

He took a deep, shuddering breath, his voice devoid of warmth:

"Let go."

"Stella, from the very beginning, the only reason I ever looked at you was because you were Elena's sister. Without Elena, you are nothing to me."

Stella refused to let go, gripping him with manic strength.

"No! That's a lie! You told me she was too quiet and I was fun! You said we both had our charms! The way you looked at me—I know you liked me!"

"You made her give things to me because you cared about me more than her!"

Her cries were desperate, her logic entirely unhinged.

"So what if she's gone?! We can just be together! She and I share the same face! Being with me is the exact same as being with her—what difference does it make?!"

Chase stared down at her face.

That familiar face.

The face that had occasionally distracted him with its lively, flirtatious energy. He had to admit to himself, in the darkest corners of his mind, that he had enjoyed the attention.

But deep down, he knew the truth.

The woman he loved, the anchor of his soul, was Elena.

Chase reached down, prying Stella’s fingers off his jacket, one by one.

"The difference is that she is Elena. And you are not."

"And you never will be."

He pushed her away with cold finality and walked out without looking back.

My parents stumbled out behind him, neither sparing a single glance for the girl collapsed on the floor.

The bedroom fell dead silent.

Stella sat alone on the hardwood floor, staring blankly at the empty doorway. She couldn't understand how, just sixty minutes ago, she was the beloved princess of the Vance family, and now she was discarded like trash.

Unable to process her fall from grace, Stella curled into a ball and screamed into the empty room.