"She is thick-skinned and fat," Jasper Blake said flatly. "She has too much blood anyway. Donating five to seven liters isn't too much for someone like her."
Fiona heard him clearly, even though her eyes remained closed. She lay still on the narrow hospital bed, her body weak and strangely heavy, as if every limb had been filled with sand. The sharp smell of antiseptic lingered in the air, and the white light above her eyelids felt too bright, even through the darkness. She did not move, did not react. She pressed her lips together gently, holding everything in, afraid that if she let even a breath slip wrong, the tears waiting behind her eyes would escape.
"You're sick!" Aria shouted, her voice shaking with anger and fear. "What if something happened to her? What if she didn't survive?"
Fiona's fingers curled faintly under the sheet. Her chest felt tight, hollow at the same time, a dull ache spreading slowly as the meaning of his words settled in. She had always known she was different in this house. She was Aria's daughter from a mistake made during the cold, broken years of her marriage to Jasper. Not his child. Never his. Just a reminder he had been forced to live with.
"Calm down," Jasper replied, irritation slipping into his tone. "Nat is in a delicate condition right now. She fell from a high wire during a shoot and lost a dangerous amount of blood. She's thin and fragile. Fiona is healthier. Stronger. This was the logical choice."
Logical.
The word echoed softly in Fiona's mind. She focused on the quiet beeping of a machine nearby, letting the sound anchor her as she breathed slowly, carefully. Being logical had always been her role. Be useful. Be quiet. Don't take up space. She had learned it early.
"She's not a thing," Aria said, her voice breaking. "She feels pain. She's still my child."
"And she's the result of your betrayal," Jasper said coldly. "Don't forget that."
Silence followed, thick and heavy.
Fiona felt a single tear slide into her hair, warm against her skin. She did not wipe it away. She kept her eyes closed, her breathing shallow, listening as the truth settled in again, familiar and heavy. She was Fiona Blake only by name, a girl who learned too young how to endure, how to give, and how to disappear quietly when she was no longer needed.
After the voices faded into uneasy silence, Fiona slowly opened her eyes.
A white ceiling filled her vision, bare and unfamiliar, the light above it too bright and too cold. For a moment, she simply stared, blinking softly, as if grounding herself in reality. When she tried to move her hand, a sharp sting shot through her arm, and she flinched instinctively, her fingers curling back against the bed. Only then did she remember. The needle. The hours of weakness. The dizziness that had swallowed her whole.
She had agreed to donate her blood to Nathasha. Her stepsister. Jasper and Aria's true daughter. The star of the family. Nathasha had fallen from a high wire during a shoot and had been rushed to the hospital in critical condition, blood loss severe enough to throw the entire household into panic. Fiona had not been asked gently. It had been presented as something obvious, something expected. She was healthy. She was strong. She had more than enough. So they took more blood than they should have, far more than her body could easily give, because Nathasha was weak, because Nathasha was precious.
Lying there now, pale and aching, Fiona felt a quiet sickness coil in her stomach. Not just from the physical weakness, but from the unfairness of it all. How easily love flowed toward a star. How naturally care gathered around someone beautiful and famous. Nathasha was always discussed with pride, her name spoken with excitement, with concern, with affection. Fiona, on the other hand, existed in the pauses, in the silences between conversations. Even her own parents rarely spoke about her, as if acknowledging her presence required effort they did not wish to give.
Jasper had never hidden his resentment. Unable to tolerate Fiona's existence, he had sent her away to the countryside to live with her grandmother when she was still a child. Eighteen long years she spent there. When she returned to the city at nineteen, she had hoped things might change. Instead, comparison followed her everywhere. Nathasha's beauty. Nathasha's fame. Nathasha's perfection. Each comparison chipped away at Fiona's spirit until she no longer knew where her confidence had gone. Slowly, painfully, she became someone desperate for validation, hungry for even the smallest kindness.
Now she was twenty-one.
Her marriage had been arranged long ago by her grandmother, promised to the younger son of the King's family when she was still little. At the time, it had felt like a distant story, something unreal. But now, as the wedding approached, Fiona found herself clinging to it with fragile hope. She was genuinely happy she was getting married, because deep down, she had always feared she might be unwanted forever. She was overweight. She was not beautiful like Nathasha. At eighty kilograms, even after losing ten through sheer effort and discipline, she still felt large, still felt unworthy. She had worked so hard to lose weight simply so she could look acceptable on her wedding day.
She turned her head slightly on the pillow, staring at the pale curtain fluttering near the window. Jackson's face drifted into her mind. Her future husband. He had always been kind to her in the few meetings they had shared. Gentle. Respectful. Better than most people she knew. Better than half the family she shared blood with.
"I hope you love me," she thought silently, her fingers pressing weakly into the sheet.