Five years after my mother’s death, my father brought home a woman and her daughter. I stood in front of the door, refusing to let them enter. That was the first time my father hit me.

“From now on, this woman is your mother and the girl next to her is your sister! If you can’t accept that, then get out of my house!”

Fury coursed through me as I stormed out, leaving my home behind. In his anger, he seized the one thing my mother had left me—the house. He took it, leaving me homeless and stranded on the streets. I didn’t contact him again until I found myself hunched over in my rented room, coughing up blood and trembling as I dialed his number in desperation.

But instead of concern, I heard laughter—cheerful chatter coming from a dinner table. His voice sliced through the laughter with icy indifference: “If you’re going to die, then just die already. I’m not a doctor!”

Dad seemed to forget that ever since I left that day, he had frozen all my funds. I couldn’t even afford painkillers.

——

The sting from Stephan Murdoch’s slap burned deep into my skin. In all my years, it was the first time he had ever raised his hand against me and it was all because of the woman standing in front of me, Lorene Hopkins and her daughter, Cassandra.

Lorene rushed forward, grabbing my father’s wrist, her eyes filled with a feigned concern as she glanced at me. “Honey, how could you hit her? She’s your own child,” she cooed softly, as if her words were meant to soothe. “Valerie, I’m not here to take your mother’s place. Cassandra and I just want to take care of Stephan. We only want to help you take care of him. That’s all.”

As she finished, Lorene gently nudged Cassandra forward. The girl smiled sweetly at me, her eyes sparkling as she held out a photo. When I noticed her gaze drift to my chest, she displayed the picture, allowing me to see it fully.

It was a family photo—my dad, Lorene and her. They were posed together like a perfect family, with Cassandra right in the middle. A perfect family of three.

Before my mother died, she always wanted us to take a family photo. But at that time, my dad’s company was going public and he was constantly busy.

“We’ll do it soon,” he’d always say. “Things are just too hectic right now.”

“Why don’t we just take a selfie for now?” Mom had joked back then. Now, all that remained in our living room was a simple snapshot of us at the dining table—a pale, inadequate memory of what used to be.

Flooded with memories of the past, an uncontrollable wave of rage surged inside me. I wanted nothing more than to rip their picture to shreds. Before I knew it, my hand was already reaching for Cassandra’s photo.

Before I could retract it, Cassandra smiled at me, her expression innocent. In the next instant, the frame slipped from her grasp and shattered into pieces on the floor.

“Valerie, you… no, it’s my fault. My hand slipped,” Cassandra stammered, her voice soft and apologetic, though her eyes betrayed no remorse.

Lorene rushed over, pulling Cassandra to her feet, her tear-filled eyes turning to me with the same feigned concern. “Valerie, I know you don’t want to accept me and I don’t want to force you to. You don’t have to hurt Cassandra. She is innocent.”

At the sight of Lorene’s tears, Dad’s expression softened. His face filled with tenderness for her as I watched him and suddenly, I felt a pang of injustice for my mother.

Mom had stood by his side through every hurdle of building his business. She had watched his empire grow larger and larger, even as it consumed more and more of his time.

Even when she was sick, she hid it from him, not wanting to distract him. It wasn’t until the day she coughed blood onto my face that I realized how much worse her condition had become. By the time we took her to a doctor, it was too late. Even with all of Dad’s money, we couldn’t save her from terminal lung cancer.

In her final moments, Dad took me into his lap and cradled me in his arms while holding Mom’s hand. “Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of our daughter,” he had promised. “I’ll never let anything happen to her.” The sting from Stephan’s slap still lingered on my face, but what hurt more was the truth behind it all.

Stephan didn’t know this wasn’t the first time I had encountered Lorene and Cassandra. The first time I saw them was at one of Murdoch’s company celebration parties. I had overheard their conversation in the restroom.

“Soon we’ll be living the good life, Cassandra,” Lorene had said, her voice low but confident. “That man’s wife is dead, leaving only a daughter. And once I marry him, I’ll take charge of everything.”

I had seen countless women like Lorene, but there was something different about her features that caught my attention. It was how much her eyebrows and eyes resembled Mom’s. Not entirely, but enough to make me look twice. And now, here she was, standing in my house.

“You’ve been spoiled rotten by your mother!”

Stephan’s voice jolted me out of my thoughts. I watched as he rushed over to help Lorene up. Anger boiled inside me and I stepped forward, desperate to tell him the truth.

“Dad, they’re lying to you. They’re only after your money! I heard them said it in—”

But he didn’t even let me finish. With a wave of his hand, he shoved me aside. I stumbled, falling to the floor, glass shards digging into my palms. The sharp pain shot through me and I winced.

Seeing the blood pooling in my hand, my father froze. For a moment, it looked like he was about to reach out to help, but he stopped himself. His face hardened as he spoke, his voice cold. “You brought this on yourself,” he said. “From now on, Lorene is your mother and Cassandra is your sister. If you can’t accept them, don’t bother calling me ‘Dad’!”

My hand throbbed, the glass still lodged in my skin. I clenched my fist, holding back the pain and looked up at the man who had once promised to protect me.

“Then I wish you have a great new life with them, Mr. Murdoch,” I said, my voice steady. The father who loved me had already gone and the daughter who was stood in front of him right now, wouldn’t stay around for long.  The moment I raised to my feet, dizziness washed over me, made sway and limping. Mildred, our long-time housekeeper, rushed over to help, but my father barked at her.

“Stay away from her! Let her get on her feet on her own!”

“If you don’t want to be my daughter anymore, then get out of my house. And don’t think you can take a single thing with you!”

I swallowed down the taste of blood in my mouth and forced a smile at Mildred, signaling that I was okay.

“Nothing in this house is valuable anyway. Think I want to burden myself with trash?”

My father’s face darkened at my words, his expression full of hatred and anger. Ignoring him, I went upstairs to pack my things. When I came back down, Lorene and Cassandra were sitting with my father, their words dripping with fake concern for me, all the while reminding him of my so-called ‘rebellion.’

My eyes landed on the family photo in the living room—the only photo of my mother, father and me together. After a moment of hesitation, I walked over to take it.

That picture was my mother’s favorite. It was the only thing left that mattered to me. Seeing what I was about to do, Lorene quickly stepped forward, pretending to be concerned.

“Valerie, why don’t you just apologize to your father? If your mother were here, she wouldn’t want to see you like this.”

She took the photo and held it up. “Oh, such a lovely picture.”

“Look, Honey,” she turned to my dad swiftly. I lunged forward to grab it, but before I could even touch Lorene, she fell onto the coffee table. She fell on her own.

“What are you doing?!” Cassandra shrieked, rushing to her mother’s side. “She didn’t do anything! Why would you push her?”

My father, who had been silent until now, glared at me, his eyes flicking between Lorene and the photo in my hands.

“I told you, you’re not taking anything from this house. Not even that photo.”

His words made me sick to my gut and I couldn’t wait to leave this house. That thought made me glance at my suitcase and then my father barked an order at Mildred.

“Empty that case out! Every last thing in that suitcase was bought with my money.

Mildred hesitated, but under his watchful gaze, she could only lower her eyes, reluctantly picking up my luggage and carrying it away. In my hand, my mother’s smile shone from the photograph. I stared at my father, my heart growing colder with each passing second.

“This photo was taken by Mom and she printed it with her money,” I said as I tore the photo in two.

“You can keep the other half,” I said quietly, holding it out to him. Seeing that he wasn’t going to take it, I placed the other half on the table in front of him and turned to walk out the door.

Rain poured down heavily, but I didn’t care. I left that house with nothing but half of a torn photograph. As I glanced back through the door, I saw my father standing there, picking up the photo and throwing it straight into the trash.

When I stepped out of the house, I didn’t even have an umbrella with me. The rain soaked me to the bone as I walked aimlessly down the streets. Eventually, I flagged down a taxi, though I couldn’t stop coughing the entire ride. The metallic taste of blood lingered in my mouth, overwhelming me.

For my 18th birthday, my mother had bought me an apartment by the river. That’s where I told the driver to take me. When we arrived at the building, I fumbled through my pockets, searching for money to pay the fare. That’s when I realized that all my bank accounts had been frozen.  I should’ve known. My father must’ve cut my funds off the moment I stepped out of the house, planning for me to learn my lesson the hard way.

“I’m sorry,” I told the driver, panicking. “I can’t pay right now…”

The driver frowned, his patience running thin. “If you can’t pay, I’m calling the cops.”

“Wait, please!” In panic, I dug through my pockets and found fifty bucks. It was all I had left and more than half of it went to the taxi fare. It left me with barely anything.

The cold wind hit me the second I stepped out of the car. Shivering from the cold, I stumbled toward the gate of the apartment complex. I had to ask the security guard to open the gate for me since I had left in such a hurry. However, the guard lowered his hand after asking me for the apartment number and preparing to open the gate. Seeing me shivering in the cold, the guard felt a little sorry for me.

“I’m sorry, Miss Murdoch,” he said, “but the owner of this unit called earlier. They gave strict instructions not to let anyone in.”

Owner? The owner should’ve been my mother. What is he talking about?

“It was my dad, wasn’t it? The one who gave you the call,” I said, my voice shaky. “That apartment was bought by my mother for me. He can’t stop me from entering my own house.”

“Now let me in, or I’m calling your manager!”

Hearing my threat, the guard’s face turned anxious. He hurried to his post to grab an umbrella while explaining to me.

“It’s not that I don’t want to help you, Miss Murdoch. But after your mother’s passing, the apartment went to Mr. Murdoch. So technically, he’s the owner. And, frankly, it was his money that purchased the apartment in the first place, wasn’t it?”

His words trailed off as he noticed the disbelief on my face. I could see the pity in his expression, but all I felt was a bitter laugh bubbling up inside me. Even strangers could see how wrong this situation was, yet it was my own father pulling the strings.

“Please don’t make this hard for me, Miss Murdoch,” he added softly. “I have a family to support. My dad is sick and I just have a baby. I can’t lose—”

I didn’t hear the rest of his words. The world seemed to hum around me, the rain mingling with my tears. I stood there, drenched and alone. Perhaps because he felt sorry for me, he reached out and handed me the umbrella.

Just then, a car pulled up to the gate. It was dark and its headlights shone right into my face, blinding me for a moment. Then I started to get dizzy, either from the light or the rain. I squinted, trying to make out who it was.

A familiar figure stepped out of the car—Hayden Cox. He was the son of one of my mother’s best friends. I remembered my mother joked with Hayden’s mother that they agreed to marry me off to him. Despising the idea, I smeared mud from my pocket onto his back when he hugged me. He freaked out when he saw the mud stain on my hand and his clothes. Before leaving, he shouted, swearing that he wouldn’t hug me ever again. It was supposed to be a joke, but after that incident, the betrothal between us was called off.

“Valerie? Why are you standing here soaking wet? Aren’t you going to come in?” he asked as soon as he realized it was me. “And what happened to your hand? Why is it all bloody?” he asked, his voice full of concern.

I looked down at my hand. I’d forgotten about the cut from the glass shards and now the blood had dried into a dark scab. Hayden’s kindness warmed my heart and for the first time that day, I felt like crying. My tears spilled uncontrollably. He rushed over, wiping them away.

“Hayden, I…” I tried to speak, but a cough racked my body. Blood splattered onto the ground as I collapsed, unable to stop myself from falling. The last thing I saw before my vision blurred was Hayden’s face turning white with fear. His crisp white shirt was speckled with my blood. My vision went dark and Hayden’s panicked voice was the last thing I heard.

“Valerie, stay with me! Don’t close your eyes! Somebody call an ambulance, now!”

As I lay there, slipping in and out of consciousness, I couldn’t help but think, He’s going to hate me again. He’s a clean freak.