2: 2

2

I packed everything up and told the landlord I was giving up the lease.

Then I called my mentor.

He told me that from now on I would be absorbed into a classified unit, and after that no one would be able to find any record of me.

I agreed, of course.

After all… my presence had never once made them comfortable, so there was no reason left to worry about them.

I opened my phone and happened to see the photos Abigail had posted online.

"On a trip with Mom and Dad!"

"The three of us, the most loving family there is!"

Reading her caption, I smiled a little.

Right. They were the family of three.

And me, I was only the extra one.

So why had I done so many humiliating things just to win their approval?

After giving up the lease, I called my mentor.

He told me the project was short-staffed right now, and I could start immediately.

"Melinda, are you sure? No one you need to say goodbye to?"

His voice came through the phone. "You have to understand, once you enter this classified unit, for several years your family and friends won't have any contact with you at all."

"Sir, I'm an orphan, and I didn't really make any friends while I was studying."

"So there's no one I need to say goodbye to."

The moment I finished, he told me he'd already booked my flight.

As for my records, they would be hidden automatically the day I started.

I understood exactly what that meant.

"All right. Thank you, sir."

I said it and hung up right away.

That same day he sent me a plane ticket, and I took it straight to the airport.

Once I got there, my phone rang, abrupt and jarring.

I glanced at the screen. It was Belinda Gilbert calling.

"Melinda, Mom knows you feel wronged."

"But you have to think about Abby too."

"She's innocent."

"Ever since you came back, Abby's been so unhappy, so all we could do was take her on a trip to help her clear her head."

"And your side of things, your dad and I will make it up to you."

She said it so gently, and I smiled.

Abigail had been the heiress for twenty-some years. Her mother swapped me for her, and Abigail was the one who felt wronged.

And me?

Thrown into an orphanage as a baby, and I wasn't allowed to feel wronged.

It wasn't that they thought Abigail had been wronged. It was that their hearts had leaned her way a long time ago.

"All right, I understand."

My voice stayed flat. "Mrs. Gilbert, enjoy your trip."

The moment I finished, Belinda fell silent on the other end.

"Melinda, is this how you speak to me?"

"I knew it. No home training from the start, so you never even learned how a person should talk."

She gave a cold snort. "Take a good look at yourself."

"When we're back, we'll teach you some manners properly."

I listened to her and smiled.

All I'd said was "Mrs. Gilbert," and to her that meant I had no manners.

While Abigail could throw a screaming fit at home and feel perfectly righteous about it.

"No need, Mrs. Gilbert. From now on, you'll never get the chance to teach me any manners."

3: 3

3

On the other end of the line, Belinda went quiet for a beat, then said, "Melinda, what's that supposed to mean?"

"Mrs. Gilbert, enjoy your trip."

I said it and hung up.

I'd given up on them a long time ago.

A moment later the boarding announcement came over the terminal, and I picked up my one small suitcase and hurried upstairs.

Once I'd checked in and boarded, I looked out the window and lost myself for a second.

It was my first time on a plane.

I was an orphan. I'd never had the money.

And from the day the Gilberts found me, they'd promised me over and over that they'd take me flying somewhere, on a trip.

I'd thought this would be that trip, all of us together as a family.

It never occurred to me that from start to finish, there was no place for me in their trip at all.

Even when I'd carefully asked to move my household registration under theirs, they'd turned me down without hesitation.

"Mel, from now on it's enough that we know you're our child!"

"Abby is so sensitive. If your registration moved in, it would scare her!"

And now my records were hidden. I had nothing to do with them anymore.

I closed my eyes and slept.

When I woke, the plane had already landed.

My mentor had come to meet me himself.

"Melinda, I'll go handle your onboarding paperwork first."

"Once you're officially on, your information will be sealed."

"Don't worry, the terms are all settled. This project runs three years, and after three years you'll be free to leave the team."

I nodded to show I understood.

He led me into the project team, and just seeing how many people stood outside its doors, I understood that from now on I was truly cut off from them.

I took out my phone and glanced at it, and a message from Abigail had just come in.

It was a photo of the three of them at the beach.

In it, the Gilberts were smiling sweetly, each holding one of Abigail's hands, close as could be.

I still remembered the day I was taken back into the family. I'd wanted to hold Belinda's hand, since I had never once known what it felt like to hold my mother's hand.

But the moment I took hers, she yanked it away.

Then she quickly pulled out a wet wipe and scrubbed her palm.

She explained that she had a thing about germs.

I believed her.

Now, though, I could see it for what it was. That was never a germ phobia.

Belinda simply couldn't stand me.

She could hold Abigail's hand and dote on her.

The two of them could kneel in the sand together, letting it run through their fingers.

Before, I was too naive to see what this family really thought.

Now I would never turn back again.

I switched off the phone and tossed it straight into a locker.

I knew that now that I'd started here, I hadn't needed any of it for a long time.

And my work was classified. I would never cross paths with them again.

The team had arranged a dorm for me, a private room, and sitting in that bright, spacious room, I smiled.

It was so much better than the place I used to rent.

Now I had a place of my own to land.

That night I slept unusually well.

Because I knew I didn't need to lean on the Gilberts, and I would never hold them in my heart again.

And now I had a life that was mine.

I just wondered how the Gilberts would feel once they heard the news about me.

4: 4

4

For a while after that, I threw myself into work, partly to earn my place on the project team, and partly to keep myself too busy to think about the Gilberts at all.

My work got noticed. People on the team praised it.

By now, I figured the Gilberts had probably heard I'd disappeared.

And they had.

The day they got home, they'd called me, and when they found my phone was switched off, Harry and Belinda actually came looking for me in person.

But when they learned I'd already given up my lease and gone, it stopped them short.

At first they were a little rattled, until Abigail said maybe I'd done it on purpose, just to make them worry about me.

The moment they heard that, Harry and Belinda decided not to look for me at all.

They'd wait for me to come crawling to them.

What they didn't understand was that I'd long since set them aside.

I was too busy.

Pushing the project forward took endless calculations and experiments, and I ran flat out every single day.

There was more and more for me to do on the team, and after just one month, my boss told me I'd been promoted.

They recognized what I could do, and it drove home a simple truth: if you want people to respect you, you need your own strength to stand on.

What I didn't know was that after a month of not finding me, Harry and Belinda had already panicked.

They went to the police department and reported me missing.

"Mr. Gilbert, Mrs. Gilbert, first of all, there is no Melinda Dickerson anywhere in our records."

"And second, you say your daughter is missing, but we've checked. Your daughter is named Abigail Gilbert, and she's right here beside you."

The officers looked at Harry and Belinda as they spoke.

Their faces changed.

Only they knew I was their real daughter.

But for Abigail's sake, they refused to admit it, and they'd never let me transfer my residency to them.

By the same token, to the outside world they only ever acknowledged one daughter: Abigail.

So now, when they told the police I was missing, of course the police wouldn't take it seriously.

On top of that, my file had long since been sealed under a classified identity. There was nothing for them to find.

Harry and Belinda went to the school next.

But the school told them the same thing. There were no enrollment records for me at all.

It was as if I'd never set foot in the school.

Losing all control, Harry and Belinda came apart on the spot.

They made a scene at the school, demanding to know how a girl who was obviously their student could simply have no enrollment records out of nowhere.

They demanded the school find me and give them their daughter back.

That day, I was on the project team.

It was the mentor who came to find me.

"Melinda, your biological parents are looking for you."

The mentor looked at me, and there was something complicated in her voice.

I paused for a second, then looked back at her and said quietly, "Teacher, I'm an orphan."

"Melinda, your parents already told me. They claimed you as their daughter years ago."

The mentor looked at me as she said it.

Left with no choice, I laid out everything I'd been put through in their house over the years.

"Teacher, the only one they ever saw was Abigail."

"To them, Abigail was their daughter."

"And me? I was nothing more than someone they could take or leave."

"Since they won't admit it, then I'm not their daughter anymore."