fake heiress

My name is Sarah, or at least it used to be. Before I became a vegetable, I was known as the fake heiress. I used to have the world at my feet, but after the real heiress, Emily, showed up, I became the unwanted guest. My dad was wary of me trying to grab the family fortune, my mom wanted me to move out, my brother called me a thief, and my fiancé, well, he dumped me. I was guilty, the worst kind of guilty. I had nothing to repay them with, except my life. But even in that, I failed. My suicide attempt didn't kill me, just turned me into a living corpse. Trapped in my own body, I could hear my "family" weeping. "Sarah, please wake up," they cried. "We were wrong..." But they didn't know. I couldn't wake up. Someone who’d given up on living, how could they possibly return?

I lay in the hospital bed, able to do nothing but breathe. My jump hadn't been high enough. I was a vegetable, fully aware but completely trapped. The room was quiet, empty except for the occasional nurse or doctor. Oh, and one girl. Emily. She came to visit. My name, Sarah, was hers now. I was Jessica now, a name chosen for the mistakes of the past. She, the real heiress, had been taken from her family, raised in poverty, while I lived a life of luxury. And now, here I was, and she was the only one who visited.

She sat beside me, moistening my lips with a cotton swab. “I'm going abroad, Sarah. I never wanted this to happen, for it to turn into such a tragedy. Please get better, come home. I don't blame you...” I wanted to laugh, a bitter, twisted laugh. She didn't blame me. But there was no home to go back to. The people there weren't my family anymore. No one but me remembered the love we’d once shared…

It all started when my brother met a girl who looked almost exactly like him, even down to the small birthmark near the corner of their eyes, a trait passed down from my dad’s side of the family. My brother felt an instant connection and brought her home. My parents were shocked. They looked at her, then at me, so unlike anyone in the family, and a silent understanding passed between them. A few days later, a DNA test revealed the truth: I was the fake heiress. My biological parents, the Millers, had been in the same hospital, giving birth on the same day as my mom. A mix-up, fueled by my birth father’s celebratory drinks and my mother’s consultation with a plastic surgeon, had changed our lives forever. My family’s business had boomed, and I’d been raised in the lap of luxury while Emily, the real Sarah, struggled. I became a pampered princess, while Emily excelled in school and interned at my dad’s company, where my brother found her. The rest of the story was predictable. The princess returned to her rightful place, and the imposter, the wicked servant girl, was humiliated and cast out. The only difference? The wicked servant girl wasn’t executed. She became a vegetable, a lingering punishment, unable to even end her own suffering.

Emily continued, "Sarah, please get bet...