Chapter 1

I’ve always known since I was little, that a person could mean less than a dog.

To my mom, I was worth far less than her precious dog.

Her dog could stay by her side, soaking in her endless care.

But me? When I was barely a month old, she sent me to the countryside to fend for myself.

A fever, one she ignored, left my left leg permanently damaged.

I didn’t cry, didn’t complain. Quietly, I erased all ties between her and me.

But later, when she heard I’d found a new mom, she completely lost her mind.

Content

My name is Gabrielle Hackett. Gabe, for short.

My name might as well mean “extra” because, to my career-driven mom and love-struck dad, their perfect little world never needed a kid like me.

The year I was born, Mom’s career was soaring. She was set to perform at Lincoln Center, achieving her lifelong dream of being the prima ballerina she’d always aspired to be.

When she first found out she was pregnant, she wanted to terminate.

But her body couldn’t handle it.

The doctors warned her that terminating the pregnancy could cause irreversible damage.

That was a risk she wasn’t willing to take.

Dad, hopelessly devoted to her, was terrified of losing her.

“Once the baby’s born, we can hire a nanny. The baby won’t stop you from dancing,” he promised her.

With Dad’s persuasion and the doctor’s reassurance, I—who was never supposed to exist—was brought into the world.

However, during delivery, complications arose because of my oversized head.

The doctors fought to save her life, but she was left paralyzed from the waist down, confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her days.

Because of me, Mom’s career was destroyed.

I became the villain in her story from the moment I was born. She never smiled at me, only met me with endless disdain and bitter words.

To console her, once her health stabilized, Dad whisked her away for a vacation to help her recover.

And me? They left me in the hospital’s incubator, completely forgotten.

Thankfully, a kindhearted nurse called Dad to remind him to pick me up.

But in the end, it wasn’t my parents who came for me—it was the nanny they’d hired.

Throughout my infancy, my parents never once held me.

Mom had plenty of milk to breastfeed me, but she wouldn’t. She’d pump it and pour it all down the drain instead.

The nanny tried to persuade her. “Breastfeeding is good for the baby.”

Mom sneered.

“That thing isn’t good enough to drink my milk.”

Maybe her cold, cutting voice upset me, but I cried endlessly in my bassinet.

The nanny rushed to comfort me, but Mom was visibly annoyed.

“Crying, crying, always crying! It’d be better if she just died already!”

That was her go-to line.

If not for my eyes—eyes that resembled hers so closely—even the nanny might have doubted I was her child.

There are probably few kids in this world who, from birth, are showered with nothing but rejection.

Mom made it an art.

She’d instead I suffer than let herself endure the slightest inconvenience.

But she didn’t know back then that life had a way of balancing the scales.

The pain you spare yourself by neglecting your children will one day return to you tenfold.