In Valerie Horton's previous life, she was the eldest daughter of the Horton family, one of the wealthiest families in Capstead.
Yet, one day, her little sister went missing, and Valerie was cast out for not watching after her.
From then on, Valerie had to live on her own. On her 20th birthday, she was diagnosed with a terminal illness.
A few months later, she died of grief. Fortunately, Valerie got to wake up in her 7-year-old self.
Inside the little girl's body was a mature soul.
Because of what she had gone through in her previous life, she decided to give up on gaining her family's love this time.
Instead, she was determined to leave and stay away from her three brothers.
With the knowledge she learned in her previous life, Valerie managed to secure a good living despite her young age.
On the day she told her family that she was leaving, however, her three brothers stopped her.
Kieran Horton, her eldest brother, pleaded, "Don't go, Valerie. I'll give you whatever you want as long as you stay with us." ...
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The Outcast Daughter
"You have only two months left." Valérie Horton left the hospital with her diagnosis.
She stood in the yard of the hospital idly and mocked herself inwardly, her face pale.
She remembered how happy she was yesterday when she went home after work with a piece of birthday cake.
The second Valerie ate the cake, she felt intense pain, as if her internal organs were twisted together.
She passed out in the rented room due to the agony.
She was used to feeling this pain after experiencing it for two months.
At first, she was worried. Yet, she didn't go to the hospital as she thought it was nothing and she needed to save money.
She had no idea it would cost her more.
On her 20th birthday, Valerie received the diagnosis of a terminal illness...
Cherish had never been good at coping. She knew this. It had always been Len who'd held her together. But with Len gone, Cherish turned to the only coping mechanism she knew- denial. It was easy, simply pretend it hadn't happened; pretend he hadn't happened, pretend she hadn't happened. All she had to do was ignore any and everything that served as a reminder. Even if that meant moving and changing everything about herself and living as a shell.
The problem? Everything reminded her. Her sister, her old friends, even her own skin. And she was putting so much effort into avoiding the newest truth that threatened to pull her apart, that she was letting her guard slip elsewhere. For years she'd kept a careful distance from boys, steeling her heart from a pain that scared her. And yet somehow, the strange new boys had managed, despite her best efforts, to work their way into her life.
Cherish was soon going to learn that pretending was just that; pretending. That she could only patch the walls that she'd built around herself for so long. It would only be a matter of time before her dam would break and the buildup of her denials would surge through and drown her. She would need to learn to cope and trust or be washed away in the flood.
Rated Mature for dark themes and substance use & abuse and language