Chapter 1

The year I am diagnosed with brain cancer, I finally find my biological parents.

They aren't billionaires. They aren't even rich.

They're just ordinary working people.

Dad works construction from dawn to dark. Mom cleans houses and takes housekeeping jobs wherever she can find them.

My older brother, Ryan, delivers food in the freezing winter and brutal summer heat.

So does my fiancé, Adrian.

All of them work themselves to the bone just to buy my medicine and pay for another round of treatment.

For three years, I watch them struggle because of me.

And now, my cancer is advanced.

My hair is gone.

My body is so thin that my bones show beneath my skin.

Today, I finally decide to stop fighting.

I sit at my desk with a pen in my hand and begin writing my goodbye letter.

Then I hear my mother's voice outside my bedroom.

“Our family owns Bennett Medical. We have the best doctors and cancer specialists in the country. We could have treated Nora from the beginning.”

Her voice shakes.

“Are we really going to keep watching her suffer like this?”

My hand freezes over the paper.

Ryan answers almost immediately.

“We agreed on three years.”

Three years?

My fingers tighten around the pen.

“We need to know why she came back,” he continues. “How else are we supposed to know if she wanted us because we're her family or because she found out we're rich?”

I stop breathing.

Rich?

Mom says something I can't hear.

Then Adrian's voice comes through the door.

Calm. Cold.

“There are only two days left.”

I stare at the wall.

Adrian continues.

“When the test is over, we'll tell her everything and get her the best treatment possible.”

A short silence.

Then he adds, “Maybe suffering a little isn't a bad thing. At least this way, we'll know she won't resent Olivia after she officially joins the family.”

My grip tightens until the pen almost snaps.

Two days.

They think I have two days.

I look down at the unfinished letter in front of me.

They don't know.

I don't have two days left.

I can barely make it through one.

For a long time, I just sit there.

The voices outside keep going, but I can no longer make out the words.

My eyes slowly move toward the mirror on my desk.

The girl staring back at me has no hair.

Her face is pale.

Her cheeks are hollow.

Her body has been eaten away by years of treatment and pain.

For a moment, I barely recognize her.

Three years ago, when the DNA results came back, Mom and Dad held me and cried.

They told me I was their daughter.

Their baby.

They said they had spent years wondering where I was and what kind of life I had lived without them.

Dad held my shoulders and promised, “I don't care what it costs. We'll get you through this.”

Mom cried harder.

“Even if we have to sell everything we own, we'll save you.”

I believed them.

For the first time in my life, I thought I finally had a family.

And for the next three years, they made sure I believed it.

Dad picked me up for hospital appointments on an old e-bike.

On my birthday, he once brought home a damaged cake he said he'd found on clearance.

He looked so proud when he handed it to me.

I was proud too.

Mom cooked noodles when I couldn't keep anything else down.

She bought me cheap dresses whenever she had a little money left over.

When the pain became so bad that I couldn't sleep, she sat beside my bed and sang the same lullaby her mother had once sung to her.

Ryan knew I hated being trapped inside.

So every time he took me to treatment, he pushed my wheelchair through the park afterward.

When I got depressed, he stayed with me.

We watched movies.

Played games.

Talked about everything except cancer.

And Adrian...

I still remember the night I break down completely.

The pain is unbearable.

The future feels empty.

I stand on a bridge, convinced I can't do this anymore.

Adrian runs after me.

He grabs my shoulders so hard his hands shake.

His eyes are red.

“Nora, I know you're hurting.”

His voice cracks.

“But there are people who love you.”

He pulls me against his chest.

“So if you can't keep going for yourself, do it for us.”

And I do.

I keep going.

For them.

For three years.

I take the cheapest medication available.

I accept the most basic treatment because I think that's all my family can afford.

I swallow every pill while calculating how many food deliveries Ryan must have made to pay for it.

I endure every hospital visit while wondering how many houses Mom had to clean.

Until last month.

My doctor finally tells me the tumor has progressed too far.

It's pressing against the nerves in my brain.

Soon, I'll spend less and less time awake.

My hearing will fade.

So will my vision.

Maybe that's why they stopped being careful.

Maybe they thought I couldn't hear them anymore.

Maybe they thought I was already half unconscious.

A bitter smile pulls at my lips.

I turn the medical report over.

On the blank back page, I begin to write.

Mom. Dad.

I'm sorry.

I'm leaving.

Thank you for giving me a family before I die.

Even if the family you gave me was never real.

At least, for a little while, I believed it was.

Soon, I won't have to hurt anymore.

I won't have to be tired anymore.

My pen stops.

Someone knocks on the door.

A second later, Mom walks in carrying a glass of water and a handful of pills.

Dad follows her.

In his hand is a cheap glass jar filled with brightly colored candy.

Mom smiles at me.

“Nora, sweetheart. Time for your medicine.”

Dad lifts the jar and gives it a little shake.

“We know you hate the taste.”

He smiles too.

“So we brought you something sweet.”