It took my dad a moment to snap out of it, and then he awkwardly changed the subject.

“So, what was your award-winning essay about?”

I pretended not to notice my stepmother’s hateful glare as I walked over to her with a big smile.

“I wrote about how amazing my mom was! How she raised me, even though she wasn’t well, and how she still donated blood, especially since she had Rh-negative blood...”

As my stepmother’s face darkened, I quickly reached out to grab her hand.

“Mom! Don’t be upset! I just combined a classmate’s story with your experiences for some creative flair...”

Suddenly, I screamed.

“Ah!”

The fruit knife in her hand had accidentally slashed my arm.

A long cut immediately started bleeding, badly.

And I had taken aspirin earlier.

The blood wouldn’t stop.

I collapsed weakly into my dad’s arms.

“Don’t blame Mom! It’s my fault. I made her upset again!”

“Are you crazy? Why are you taking it out on the kid?” My dad glared at my stepmother and rushed me to the hospital.

As expected, the hospital struggled to find Rh-negative blood quickly.

Panicked, my dad blurted out, “Tanya, you need to do it!”

My stepmother stared at him, tears welling up in her eyes.

“No!” I cried, tears streaming down my face.

“Dad, am I going to die? But I can’t drag Mom down with me!”

“You love Mom the most. I don’t want you to be sad! It’s okay if I die. Mom can have another, healthier child to love you both for me!”

My stepmother hesitated, her face pale.

Maybe my trembling hands threw my dad off because suddenly, he stood up.

I gave a subtle nod, and my mom, floating nearby, looked stunned.

With two sharp slaps, my dad hit my stepmother across the face.

“This is what you owe her!” he yelled.

“Now go give my daughter your blood!”

I fingered the necklace around my neck, smirking as I asked,

“Mom, happy now?”

The ‘Tears of Love’ necklace was indeed a token of love between my dad and mom, my real mom, the one who was now a ghost.

My stepmother had tried to coax it out of my dad so many times, but he never budged. Today, she was testing him again, and well...

I do love watching them play their little games of mistrust.

My mom’s ghost floated over, trembling slightly.

“Alright, you win,” she said.

“But I don’t want you hurting yourself just to prove a point!”

Now that’s something only a real mom would say.

I’d been able to see her since I was born, always floating around like a fairy.

She was always smiling.

“My Sienna, you’re going to grow up happy and healthy, okay?”

Whenever I pouted and asked for a hug, she’d immediately try to hold me, only to pass right through me.

Then, she’d end up crying even harder than I did.

But Tanya Cook, my stepmother, would stop my dad from comforting me and say,

“A child shouldn’t be spoiled. She needs to learn to stand on her own.”

Tanya only got really worked up when I actually got hurt. She’d fuss over me like she cared.

“Oh no, you’re bleeding! I told you to be careful! Didn’t you listen to me?”

She even told my teachers that I had some rare hereditary condition that made me bleed easily. And of course, she mentioned that I had Rh-negative blood.

The other girls envied me for getting out of gym class. They all thought I had the best mom ever.

But I knew the truth. I didn’t have any hereditary disease.

The real issue was Tanya.

She didn’t care about me, but just the blood I lost.

And she definitely wasn’t my mom.

My real mom’s name was Bella Fuller. She visited me every night, sitting by my bed and telling me stories.

Even as a little girl, I had already started plotting my revenge.

My mom, Bella, was an orphan, raised by the kindness of many families.

When she got to college, she started donating blood regularly.

That’s where she met my stepmother, Tanya, who was volunteering at the blood drive.

“Wow, what a coincidence!” Tanya had said. “We have the same blood type, and we even go to the same school!”

They became close friends, and Tanya even introduced her brother to my mom.

The day they met, my mom was wearing a simple white dress, her hair naturally curled.

When she smiled, it was like everything around her faded, leaving Tanya, despite her bold features and striking beauty, suddenly less radiant.

A rich boy was falling for a girl from humble beginnings. It was a perfect love story.

But there was a twist. Tanya had a hereditary condition that required regular blood transfusions.

My mom, being both her best friend and now her sister-in-law, never hesitated to donate.

It wasn’t until later that my mom learned the truth. Tanya wasn’t actually related to my dad.

She was the daughter of my grandmother’s best friend, who had asked my dad’s family to take care of her before she passed.

Tanya had grown up alongside my dad, more like siblings, but they weren’t really related.

As Tanya’s health improved, my mom’s started to decline.

Every time Tanya needed blood, my mom grew weaker. When Tanya needed another transfusion, my mom hesitated for the first time.

Tanya collapsed into my dad’s arms, sobbing,

“Don’t blame Bella! I know I’m not her real sister. It’s only fair if she doesn’t want to help me.”

“Brother, I guess it’s just my fate. Maybe in our next lives, we’ll be real siblings.”

My dad frowned, his voice sharp with disappointment.

“Bella, since when did you become so selfish?”

“It’s just blood, not an organ! You can just eat something to make up for it!”

But he didn’t think about the fact that my mom was already eight months pregnant.

Tanya eventually recovered fully.

But my mom didn’t make it through childbirth.

My dad was devastated, wracked with guilt, and cried until he fainted several times.

Tanya comforted him,

“Brother, you have to take care of yourself. Let me look after you and the baby.”

“Bella only ever made you sad. But me? I’d never hurt you like that.”

And so, a white sheet covered my mom’s body, while a wedding veil adorned Tanya.

But my dad didn’t know that my mom’s death wasn’t just a tragic accident.

There was something more sinister at play.