30 Days to Forgive Them? I Chose to Die

Harper's POV

Three years ago, on their way to attend my graduation art exhibition, the cruise ship carrying my fiancé and my family caught fire.

Over the past three years, I downed sleeping pills countless times, desperately wanting to follow them into the afterlife. Every single time, my adopted sister, Serena, saved me, crying hysterically as she shoved her fingers down my throat to make me throw up.

"They are already gone! Harper, you can't keep living in the past. You have to live on for their sake!"

After fainting from yet another high fever and being rushed to the hospital, I was diagnosed with terminal leukemia.

The doctor said I had a month left, at most.

I refused their advice to find a bone marrow match. Clutching my family's belongings, I decided to go back to our old estate in the suburbs for one last look.

While I was walking in a daze, a little boy running wildly crashed hard into my legs.

A male voice that had haunted my dreams for years rang out from behind me. "Alistair, if you keep running off, what will you do if Mommy and Daddy don't want you anymore?"

In an instant, it felt like I had been plunged into freezing water. I froze in place.

Turning my head in absolute disbelief, I saw Francis—the man who had supposedly died in that shipwreck.

He was gently wiping the sweat from the boy's forehead. His other hand was tightly intertwined with the fingers of my adopted sister, Serena.

The moment he looked up and met my gaze, the smile on his face instantly froze.

All the color drained from Serena's face. She snatched her hand away from Francis as if she had been electrocuted.

"Harper, it's not what you think. Listen to me, let me explain..."

Before she could finish her sentence, the little boy hugged Francis's thigh. He pointed his finger at me and asked in a sweet, childish voice, "Daddy, who is this woman?"

In a split second, the air dropped into a dead silence.

I stared at them numbly, my brain buzzing.

One was the fiancé who had once gotten down on one knee, swearing to spoil me like a princess for the rest of my life.

The other was the orphaned daughter of my mother's best friend, a girl I had doted on and loved like my own flesh-and-blood sister since childhood.

I didn't understand.

I didn't know if I should be ecstatic over Francis's miraculous survival, or if I should be utterly devastated by their dirty betrayal.

Seeing me trembling all over and completely unable to speak, Francis took a deep breath, and his expression returned to a calm indifference.

"Since you caught us, there's no need to keep up the act."

"The cruise ship fire back then was a fake. I took Serena abroad. This is our son."

My legs went weak. I gripped the nearby bench just to barely keep myself standing.

"Why?"

He furrowed his brows, looking at me as if I were a completely unreasonable lunatic. His tone was full of self-righteous entitlement.

"Serena has depended on me since we were young. Couldn't you really tell?"

"That necklace I gave you in college? I actually bought it for Serena. You took it by mistake, and I just played along because I didn't want to embarrass you."

"I originally wanted to find a chance to come clean to you, but Serena was too kindhearted. She was afraid you wouldn't be able to handle the blow, so she begged me to leave this way."

It felt like my heart had been tossed into a meat grinder. I let out a miserable laugh, my voice horribly hoarse.

"Then why didn't you just lie to me until the day I died?"

He sighed, looking visibly impatient.

"To be fair, you were a perfectly suitable candidate for marriage, and I did try to love you."

"But on the night of our engagement, Serena stood on the rooftop all night... That was when I realized I absolutely couldn't lose her."

"Since things have come to this, let's just go our separate ways peacefully."

With a few lightweight words, he shattered my three years of deep devotion, trampling it into the dirt.

I stood paralyzed, feeling ice in my veins.

Ever since the shipwreck three years ago, I suffered from severe clinical depression.

I stayed up night after night painting their portraits, painting until the tendons in my wrists were inflamed. My arms were covered in self-inflicted cigarette burns. The excessive grief and the brutal toll I took on my body caused me to develop leukemia at such a young age.

And now he was telling me that all of this was nothing but a theatrical play for them to elope in the name of love?

Was I just an absolute joke?

Like a walking corpse, I pushed open the door to the old estate behind the greenhouse.

From the living room, which should have been covered in dust, familiar and cheerful laughter echoed out.

My mom and dad, the very people I had personally erected headstones for, were peeling oranges for Alistair with faces full of doting love.

My biological brother, Jason, was using his elegant, piano-playing hands to build Legos for the little boy.

The whole family looked like a picture of harmonious joy, right up until they noticed me standing in the entryway.

A flash of guilt crossed my mother's face, and she avoided my gaze.

"What we did three years ago... it was indeed a bit out of line."

"Seeing her look like a walking corpse these past few years, it tears at my heart as a mother."

My father scoffed coldly, interrupting her.

"We'll just compensate her more materially in the future. What is there to feel guilty about?"

Jason's eyes were red. He solemnly placed Serena's hand into Francis's palm.

"Serena's parents died in a car crash to save our mom. She's all alone in this world."

"I've spoiled her like my own flesh-and-blood sister since she was a kid. To help her get her happy ending, I even kept my real sister in the dark."

"Francis, if you ever treat Serena badly, I'll be the first one to come after you."

Francis gently pulled Serena into his embrace and swore an oath right in front of my entire family.

"Jason, Mom, Dad, don't worry. I will love Serena with my life."

Amidst the blessings of my closest blood relatives, he pulled out the custom diamond ring that was originally meant for me, and slid it onto Serena's ring finger.

I bit my lip so hard until I tasted the metallic tang of blood. My tears could no longer be controlled as they crashed down.

Even on the day I received my terminal diagnosis, I had never experienced this kind of soul-crushing, bone-deep despair.

It turned out that my entire family was in on it with Serena, using a grand fake death to ruthlessly cut me out of the picture.

It turned out that I was born to be an unwanted extra, entirely unworthy of love.