Blurb：
Chloe Hayes survived a fire that took her leg and skin after her brother Ethan opened the gas valve in a rage. Abandoned in bed with infected bedsores while her parents Catherine and the switched-at-birth Ava consume their lives, Chloe overhears Ethan’s secret: the DNA test was faked. She isn’t a stranger—she’s their real daughter. Trapped in a web of guilt and betrayal, Chloe must expose Ethan’s cruel deception before her family sacrifices her for Ava’s leukemia treatment. A heartbreaking tale of family secrets, identity, and a sister’s fight for the truth.Content：
My brother, in a fit of rage at our parents, opened the gas valve on the grill.Everyone else got out. I was asleep. The fire took most of my skin, and one of my legs.
Mom and Dad walked through those first years in a daze of tears, until the day my brother, Ethan, brought home a girl and a piece of paper. A DNA test. It turned out I was the wrong baby, switched at birth. A stranger in their house.
And just like that, their guilt was cut in half.
I clung to life until I was eighteen. While they all went to the real daughter’s birthday party, I was in my bed, twisting. It had been a long time since Mom and Dad left on their business trip. Too long since anyone had turned me over. The old bedsores on my back had become infected, breeding something that crawled and itched with a fire of its own.
I tried to roll over, a desperate, clumsy push that sent me tumbling onto the floor. As I lay there, a muffled shout drifted from the terrace next door, carried on the wind.
“Ethan, aren’t you going to tell them? That you faked the DNA test?”
It was like a switch had been flipped.
“Shut up! Just shut up! I brought Ava home to fix things, to give them a way out. You want me to tell them now that it was all a lie? That I did it out of guilt? What place would I have in this family then!”
His voice dropped, thick with a desperate self-righteousness.
“I didn’t want everyone to spend their lives feeling guilty over Chloe. It was a kind lie. It was fair to everyone!”
I lay frozen on the floor.
Everyone? What about me?
1
I lay on the floor like a stray dog for a day and a night, woken only by the sound of shouting from downstairs.
“Your sister is in that kind of state, and you want her to donate bone marrow to Ava? I won’t allow it!”
It was Mom. She was back from her trip.
When she comes in, I’ll tell her. I have to tell her. I’m not the wrong baby. I’m yours. I’ve always been yours.
“Chloe’s a write-off anyway, Mom! Why can’t she do something useful for Ava? Isn’t that the least she can do, after we’ve raised her all these years out of the goodness of our hearts?”
Ethan argued his point as if I were a piece of burnt trash, something to be picked over for any last scrap of value.
“Ethan Hayes, I didn’t raise you to be this cruel. Have you forgotten who the real culprit is for what happened to your sister?”
I could hear the tears in my mother Catherine’s voice, the sheer pain of it all. Her biological daughter was sick, and it was tearing her apart, but her conscience wouldn’t let her hurt me further.
“Fine! So I lit the goddamn gas. But none of you went in to save her either! Are we supposed to be trapped in that guilt forever? Donating marrow isn’t a big deal. If you won’t care about Ava, I will!”
The slam of the front door echoed through the house, followed by a few muffled sobs.
My bedroom door opened. Mom gasped.
“Chloe! Honey, you fell! Why didn’t you call out?”
Under the gauze, the sores itched and burned. I looked at my mother’s face and cried without making a sound.
“Mom,” I started, my voice a broken rasp. “The truth is, I’m…”
Before I could finish, her phone rang. The hospital.
“Chloe, honey, they found out at her birthday party… your sister has leukemia. I have to go to the hospital now. You be good, okay?”
She stroked my hair, her touch frantic.
“I’ll take care of this and then I’ll be right back to see you.”
She rushed out, a blur of motion and worry. I couldn’t bring myself to stop her.
They were all living in a prison of guilt because of me. Now my sister was sick. I couldn’t be selfish.
But all I wanted was to be their daughter.
The tears carved paths through the scarred, uneven terrain of my face, trickling into my mouth. They tasted bitter.
I’ll wait one more day, I told myself. Just one more day. When Mom has a clear head, I’ll tell her everything.
I waited with a fragile, fluttering hope. But it wasn’t Mom who came. It was Ethan.
“Chloe? You awake?”
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