Chapter 3

Through my sobs, I managed to speak, "How... how did Grandpa die?"

Zoe's eyes were red, and she looked at me with hesitation, as if struggling with whether to tell me.

After a long pause, she finally spoke.

"Deborah... last night, are you... are you okay? It’s all my fault. If only I had stopped you, none of this would’ve happened!"

I froze. How did Zoe know about last night?

"How do you know..."

My voice was hoarse.

With her eyes brimming with tears, Zoe bit her lip and handed me Grandpa's phone after tapping a few times.

"Last night, when you weren't answering your phone and didn’t come home, Grandpa got worried and called me. While we were out looking for you, he suddenly received this video. It was when he saw this... that his heart gave out."

The explicit content on the screen burned my eyes.

The girl in the video... it was me—drugged and helpless—and the ones recording it were Calvin and Jack.

I clutched my head in agony, letting out a piercing scream.

Seeing my reaction, Zoe quickly shut off the video and hugged me, pretending to console me with false sympathy.

"It's okay, it's okay, Deborah. It's over now. I know it's not your fault... I'm still here for you."

I couldn’t fully grasp what had happened that night, but I knew that within just a few hours, the video had spread across the internet.

Hateful comments flooded my social media. People who knew me whispered and pointed behind my back. Under the crushing weight of public shame, I threw myself into the river.

…

When I woke up, I was lying in a hospital bed.

I tried to sit up, but my body felt too weak.

"Don't move. You're still recovering. Eat something first."

I looked toward the voice. It was a well-maintained middle-aged woman, though exhaustion was etched on her face. She had a gentle beauty, and there was something familiar about her eyes.

Beside her stood a middle-aged man, his eyes bloodshot and his hair half-turned gray. He stared at me, his eyes red and filled with emotion.

“Who are you? Why am I here?”

"Sweetheart, I’m your mother!"

What...!?

After talking with them and reviewing the DNA report, I finally believed that the couple in front of me were indeed my long-lost parents.

According to my mother, after I was born, I had health issues and stayed in an incubator. That was when human traffickers infiltrated the hospital and kidnapped me, along with two other babies. I was only two months old at the time, and by the time they tried to track us down, we had disappeared without a trace.

They spent years searching for me but had no luck—until the DNA database matched my blood sample during a health exam before the college entrance exams.

My parents traveled a great distance to reunite with me, only to find me just as I was about to jump into the river, and they saved me.

No, it wasn’t a "jump."

It wasn't a suicide attempt—it was attempted murder.

I never intended to end my life.

After Grandpa’s passing, as I was leaving to handle his funeral arrangements, I was drugged and knocked out. Before I lost consciousness, I saw his face—it was Calvin.

Afraid that I would expose what had happened, they threw me off the bridge, staging it to look like I had taken my own life.

Everyone believed I’d committed suicide under the pressure of public shame, but I knew the truth—it was murder.

“How long has it been?” I asked.

My mom’s eyes were filled with tears again.

“It’s been two years already, sweetheart. You barely survived.”

It was only then that I realized when my parents pulled me from the water, I was barely clinging to life. I had been submerged for too long, suffocating on the edge of death.