Chapter 4

They don't love me, and I don't want to love them anymore.

I just want to live for myself at the end of my life.

Tomorrow is my chemotherapy, but why did I have to see my beloved foster parents suffer such an insult?

My foster mother passed away when I was 12, and my foster father died in an accident last year.

Can't even the dead leave in peace?

My childhood memories of Mr. and Mrs. Hayes were hazy.

I only remembered Cassie, five years older than me, taking me to an amusement park. She told me to wait while she went to buy me ice cream. I waited from morning until night, but Cassie never came back.

In the end, it was a cleaning lady at the amusement park, my foster mother, who found me and took me home.

On my first day back at the Hayes mansion, Leo cried to me, "I don't want anything. I know I've taken your place all these years, but now I just want to be with Mom, Dad, and Cassie. Please, Alex, don't make me leave."

What did Cassie, who had lost me that day, do? She pushed me away fiercely.

"Leo, no one will make you leave, and no one dares to. You are my brother, my only brother," Cassie said, hugging Leo tightly and glaring at me.

It was as if I were some unforgivable villain, trying to break up their family.

My biological mother, her eyes red-rimmed, looked at Leo and choked out to me, "Alex, when you went missing back then, Mom went crazy. So your father brought Leo home. Leo was the one who stayed with Mom through all the days and nights without you."

The moment I turned to look at Leo, he gave me a defiant smirk. "Mom, let's not talk about all that for now. Let Alex stay in my room tonight. The guest room isn't ready yet."

Leo emphasized the words "guest room."

"Oh, no, that won't do, Leo. You're particular about your bed. Changing rooms will make you sleep badly," my mother quickly said, then immediately remembered I was still there and abruptly stopped herself.

For the next four years, I lived in the guest room next to the maid's quarters on the first floor and never moved.

No more thinking about it. I can't think about it anymore.