
After 88 Times of Being Forgotten
Joy Brown · Completed · 7.7k Words
Introduction
Seven days later, I lay on the cold hospital bed, listening to my fiancé and family laughing down the hall.
They were popping champagne to celebrate my adopted sister's discharge.
No one remembered I had just had surgery. No one remembered my nut allergy.
When someone handed me a plate of almonds, I smiled.
I shoved them into my mouth, handful after handful, and swallowed them down. Then I told them I was done fighting for their love.
My fiancé demanded I postpone our wedding. My brother beat me until I bled and locked me on the rooftop to die.
After being abandoned eighty-eight times, I finally learned how to love myself—by cutting everyone who failed me out of my life.
Chapter 1
Chloe's POV
I've been counting ceiling cracks from my hospital bed. Day seven.
Every breath tugs at my left side, where a kidney used to be.
The nurse hesitated during morning rounds. "Miss Steel, your family..."
I cut her off. "The medication's fine."
Familiar noise echoed from down the hall. Emily's bell-like laughter, Mom's exaggerated "You're amazing, sweetheart," and Dad's champagne cork popping.
I yanked out the IV line. Blood beaded at the needle site. Gripping the wall, I shuffled toward the noise, each step crushing what was left of my career. Professional tennis player Chloe Steel—who might never swing a racket again after surgery.
I pushed open the door just as confetti exploded.
Everyone froze.
My fiancé Allen sat beside Emily's bed, his fingers still tangled in her hair. The gesture was too intimate.
"Chloe?" Allen shot up first, rushing to steady me. "What are you doing out of bed? The doctor said you need rest. What if your incision reopens?"
I pulled my arm away.
"We were planning to visit later." My mom Tiana, set down a cake, her voice strained. She wouldn't even meet my eyes. "Emily's being discharged today. Just a small celebration. We didn't want to disturb you."
Dad finally glanced at me, but spoke only to Allen. "Take her back to her room. She'll catch cold. Too many people here, bad air quality."
"I'm fine," I said. My voice was flat as stagnant water.
Mom suddenly brightened, as if remembering something. She grabbed a nut bowl from the coffee table and offered it to me. "Hungry? You should eat something. Surgery takes a lot out of you."
Almonds, walnuts, cashews. Emily's favorites. The house was always stocked with them.
When I was little, I'd been rushed to the ER after accidentally eating almond cookies. "SEVERE NUT ALLERGY" was stamped in red letters on the first page of my medical chart. Emily had been hospitalized that same day for a sprained ankle. Mom and Dad had stayed in her room until a nurse finally called for "the other Miss Steel's family to sign consent forms."
"I don't eat nuts," I said.
"Chloe, stop it." My brother Kelvin dropped the balloon he'd been tying. "What's with the attitude? We didn't visit for your own good! You just donated a kidney and need rest. Would it help if we came barging in making noise? Can't you be a little understanding?"
I stared at that bowl of nuts.
So they did remember I'd just donated a kidney. They simply chose not to come. Seven days. Allen's last text still read "I'll visit tomorrow." Mom had promised "I made you soup." Dad had said "I'll pick you up when you're discharged." All empty words.
I grabbed a handful of almonds and shoved them in my mouth.
Chewed. Swallowed. My throat began to itch, like tiny needles crawling inside.
"Chloe, what are you doing?!" Allen tried to grab the bowl, but I dodged.
I took another handful of walnuts. Crammed them in. Chewed hard, like I was grinding something else to pieces.
After swallowing the last bite, I dusted off my hands. "Nut allergy. It's on the first page of my chart. But don't worry," I looked at Mom's widening eyes, "you never remember anyway."
Mom's face went white. "If you're allergic, why didn't you say something?! Nobody told you to eat them!"
Dad's brow furrowed into hard lines. "You did this on purpose, didn't you? Had to cause a scene today? Emily just recovered, couldn't you let her be happy for one day? You've been like this since childhood—always demanding attention."
The hollow space where my kidney used to be filled with something else. Something cold and hard, spreading through my veins to every limb.
"Before, whenever this happened," I heard myself say, my voice eerily calm, "I would cry, scream, ask why you only remembered what Emily liked."
Allen tried to touch my arm. I stepped back.
"At seventeen, when I went into shock for three hours in the ER," I continued, looking at Dad, "you stood outside discussing whether 'Emily's match tomorrow would be affected.'"
Mom opened her mouth but no sound came.
"But not anymore." I looked at each of them. "I won't compete with Emily ever again."
The room fell silent.
Even Emily forgot her practiced innocent expression, just staring at me.
Everyone stared at me, like I was a stranger.
Or like they were seeing me for the first time.
Last Chapters
You Might Like 😍
The Billionaire's Mask (A Dark Steamy Romance)
The Pack: Rule Number 1 - No Mates
"Let me go," I whimper, my body trembling with need. "I don't want you touching me."
I fall forward onto the bed then turn around to stare at him. The dark tattoos of Domonic's chiseled shoulders, quiver and and expand with the heave of his chest. His deep dimpled smile is full of arrogance as he reaches behind himself to lock the door.
Biting his lip, he stalks toward me, his hand going to the seam of his pants and the thickening bulge there.
"Are you sure you don't want me to touch you?" He whispers, untying the knot and slipping a hand inside. "Because I swear to God, that is all I have been wanting to do. Every single day from the moment you stepped in our bar and I smelled your perfect flavor from across the room."
New to the world of shifters, Draven is human on the run. A beautiful girl who no one could protect. Domonic is the cold Alpha of the Red Wolf Pack. A brotherhood of twelve wolves that live by twelve rules. Rules which they vowed could NEVER be broken.
Especially - Rule Number One - No Mates
When Draven meets Domonic, he knows that she is his mate, but Draven has no idea what a mate is, only that she has fallen in love with a shifter. An Alpha that will break her heart to make her leave. Promising herself, she will never forgive him, she disappears.
But she doesn’t know about the child she’s carrying or that the moment she left, Domonic decided rules were made to be broken - and now will he ever find her again? Will she forgive him?
Tango with the Alpha's Heart
“He met her at the Alpha training camp,” he said. “She is a perfect suitor for him. It snowed last night, indicating that his wolf is happy with his choice.”
My heart sank, and tears made their way down my cheeks.
Alexander took my innocence last night, and now he is taking that thing in his office as his Luna.
Emily became the laughingstock of the pack on her 18th birthday and never expected the Alpha's son to be her mate.
After a night of passionate love, Emily finds out that her mate has taken a chosen mate. Heartbroken and humiliated, she disappears from the pack.
Now, five years later, Emily is a respected high-ranking warrior in King Alpha’s army.
When her best friend invites her to a night of music and laughter, she never expects to run into her mate.
Will her mate figure out it is her?
Will he chase after her, and most of all, will Emily be able to keep her secrets safe?
“Burn those who burned me!”
Burn those who burned me is an anthology book circulated on truth; justice; and REVENGE!
Story #1 The Ballad of Rabena Price.
Story #2 The rebirth of Clara Granger
Story #3 The violin of Graceland Teague
Story #4 The list for Josie Taylor
Story #5 COMING SOON!
The Billoniare's Fake Husband
Quin is wealthy, controlling, and desperate to keep his inheritance, so he offers Tyler a deal: stay married until he clicks thirty and get paid. Tyler doesn’t trust him, but he needs the money Quin was offering, so he agrees.
What starts as a fake marriage soon turns into something messy and real. Feelings begin to get involved and walls start to crack. Suddenly Tyler is risking his heart for a man he swore to hate.
Now, with secrets coming out and time running out, they both have to decide—is this just a mistake… or something worth fighting for?
Omega Bound
Thane Knight is the alpha of the Midnight Pack of the La Plata Mountain Range, the largest wolf shifter pack in the world. He is an alpha by day and hunts the shifter trafficking ring with his group of mercenaries by night. His hunt for vengeance leads to one raid that changes his life.
Tropes:
Touch her and die/Slow burn romance/Fated Mates/Found family twist/Close circle betrayal/Cinnamon roll for only her/Traumatized heroine/Rare wolf/Hidden powers/Knotting/Nesting/Heats/Luna/Attempted assassination
The mafia princess return
The Alpha Of The Shadow Pack And His Mute Luna
Vanessa, the mute runt of a cursed litter, has only ever known cruelty and abuse. Her voice stolen by a witch’s spell, her freedom crushed by a brutal father, she’s been promised to a monster she doesn’t want. But fate intervenes when she’s left for dead—bleeding, broken, and bound—only to be rescued by Alpha Alfred of the Shadow Pack.
Alfred, fighting against a generational curse that has doomed his brothers to remain wolves forever, never expected his fated mate to be a fragile girl on the brink of death. But the moment he breathes in her scent, everything changes.
Together, they must confront the past, survive betrayal, and uncover the true key to breaking the curses that bind them. Will their bond be strong enough to save them both?
The First Female Alpha
The man I was meant to marry—the rising Alpha, the pride of the Pack—thrusting into another girl like I didn't exist.
But I didn't cry. I didn't scream. I didn't even flinch.
Because the pain had carved me hollow long before he ever touched her.
He thinks I'm weak. That I'll stand by his side in two days, smile for the ceremony, and hand him my loyalty with the Alpha title.
But he's wrong.
I'm not the broken little Luna they think I am. I'm the storm they never saw coming.
The Pack worships him, but only I know the truth buried beneath his perfect lies. So I'll take everything he wants most—the throne, the title, the crown he was born to wear—and win it out from under him, in front of everyone who ever called me unworthy.
Screw the Pack. Screw the respect. Screw being tame.
I'm fury dressed in skin, madness wearing heels, and heartbreak turned into a goddamn weapon.
They wanted a loyal Luna??
Instead...
They created a monster.
And when the throne is finally mine...
The Pack won't remember the name of the Alpha who betrayed me.
They'll remember the woman who took his crown...
and became the First Female Alpha.
Tempted By The Enemy
She escapes to Preston Island to attend the wedding without informing him only to collide with Lucas’s hot, fiery and arrogant brother, the twenty-three-year-old, Nicholas Donnelly. Sparks immediately fly between them but Alyssa refuses to acknowledge them fearing her brother's wrath.
The wedding is over and Alyssa tries hard to forget the mysterious Nicholas Donnelly but can he forget her? Can he ignore the attraction he feels for her, feelings that have resurfaced after ten years?
What will Allyssa do when she is stalked by the man who has been invading her dreams since the day she met him? What will she do when she is whisked away to a deserted island by the unpredictable Nicholas Donnelly? Can she tame her heart or surrender to sinful temptations? Read to find out!
Part of the Temptation Series. Can be read as a standalone.
Chosen By The Lycan King
Legacy Of Dragons, Royal Dragons Book 2
Ria and the Balaur brothers never imagined how far their family would come.
After surviving betrayal, loss, and the lies that nearly destroyed everything they loved, they dedicated themselves to building a future. What began as a training facility for dragons soon grew into something far greater—a place where dragons and other species from around the world could learn, train, and thrive together.
Now the facility is flourishing. Their children have grown, many finding their own mates among dragons, shifters, and other species from distant lands. The family Ria fought so hard to protect has expanded beyond anything she once dreamed possible, bringing new friendships, new adventures, and a growing legacy of grandchildren.
As old secrets continue to surface, long-held beliefs about dragons and mixed-species bloodlines are being challenged. Truths buried for generations are finally coming to light, reshaping everything they thought they knew about their world.












