Eighteen years flew by.
I lived up to the brilliant mind Fate had granted me. In the competition circuit, the name Aspen Blackwood was synonymous with excellence.
had so many trophies there wasn’t enough room to display them. A spot on the national team for the training camp was already mine, and I was just one step away from a guaranteed scholarship to a top–tier university.
Thanks to my genius, the Blackwood family’s reputation soared in their social circle.
As for Brenda Hayes, who tried to swap me, and her daughter Serena Hayes, it was like they’d vanished into thin air. I never saw them again.
I thought that whole incident was long behind us, until my eighteenth birthday.
The birthday party was grand, with many guests.
I was about to cut the cake when the ballroom doors burst open.
Under the harsh lights, Brenda, pulling a girl who looked around my age, stormed in.
The girl wore a faded school uniform, her complexion wasn’t great, but her eyes were fixated on me.
82
11:56 Sat, Oct 18 M
<
:.
27
82
Her face, surprisingly, bore a striking resemblance to my mom, Eleanor–about seventy
or eighty percent.
The entire room erupted in murmurs.
Brenda fell to her knees with a thud, tears streaming down her face.
“Eleanor! I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry to the Blackwood family! Eighteen years ago, I was blinded by greed. I switched your daughter!”
She trembled, pointing at the girl beside her, feigning a tearful performance.
“Serena, *she* is your biological daughter! Aspen Blackwood, the girl you’ve raised for eighteen years, is *my* daughter!”
At her words, a wave of whispers swept through the crowd.
I watched the farce with cold indifference, wanting nothing more than to laugh.
Serena slowly walked towards me, her gaze never leaving my face.
“Aspen, you’ve stolen eighteen years of my life. Now it’s time to pay it back.”
Before my parents could react, she turned and walked to the large screen in the center of the ballroom. She picked up a marker and quickly wrote a complex formula on the
whiteboard next to it.
It was the most challenging problem from the International Olympiad.
She tossed the marker down, her eyes full of provocation as she looked at me.
“Some genuine talent can’t be bought with family money.”
My mom immediately, almost instinctively, let go of my hand, her gaze shifting to
Serena.
11:56 Sat, Oct 18 M
:
82
Watching my family’s indifferent reaction, my heart turned to ice.
Even after I’d brought them eighteen years of “prestige,” it still couldn’t outweigh the simple, powerful words: “biological daughter.”
I took a breath, met Serena’s gaze, and slowly spoke.
“You say I’m fake?”
“Where’s your proof?”
3
