The Forged Sister

My brother, in a fit of rage at our parents, opened the gas valve on the grill.

Everyone else got out. I was asleep. The fire took most of my skin, and one of my legs.

Mom and Dad walked through those first years in a daze of tears, until the day my brother, Ethan, brought home a girl and a piece of paper. A DNA test. It turned out I was the wrong baby, switched at birth. A stranger in their house.

And just like that, their guilt was cut in half.

I clung to life until I was eighteen. While they all went to the real daughter’s birthday party, I was in my bed, twisting. It had been a long time since Mom and Dad left on their business trip. Too long since anyone had turned me over. The old bedsores on my back had become infected, breeding something that crawled and itched with a fire of its own.

I tried to roll over, a desperate, clumsy push that sent me tumbling onto the floor. As I lay there, a muffled shout drifted from the terrace next door, carried on the wind.

“Ethan, aren’t you going to tell them? That you faked the DNA test?”

It was like a switch had been flipped.

“Shut up! Just shut up! I brought Ava home to fix things, to give them a way out. You want me to tell them now that it was all a lie? That I did it out of guilt? What place would I have in this family then!”

His voice dropped, thick with a desperate self-righteousness.

“I didn’t want everyone to spend their lives feeling guilty over Chloe. It was a kind lie. It was fair to everyone!”

I lay frozen on the floor.

Everyone? What about me?



1

I lay on the floor like a stray dog for a day and a night, woken only by the sound of shouting from downstairs.

“Your sister is in that kind of state, and you want her to donate bone marrow to Ava? I won’t allow it!”

It was Mom. She was back from her trip.

When she comes in, I’ll tell her. I have to tell her. I’m not the wrong baby. I’m yours. I’ve always been yours.

“Chloe’s a write-off anyway, Mom! Why can’t she do something useful for Ava? Isn’t that the least she can do, after we’ve raised her all these years out of the goodness of our hearts?”

Ethan argued his point as if I were a piece of burnt trash, something to be picked over for any last scrap of value.

“Ethan Hayes, I didn’t raise you to be this cruel. Have you forgotten who the real culprit is for what happened to your sister?”

I could hear the tears in my mother Catherine’s voice, the sheer pain of it all. Her biological daughter was sick, and it was tearing her apart, but her conscience wouldn’t let her hurt me further.

“Fine! So I lit the goddamn gas. But none of you went in to save her either! Are we supposed to be trapped in that guilt forever? Donating marrow isn’t a big deal. If you won’t care about Ava, I will!”

The slam of the front door echoed through the house, followed by a few muffled sobs.

My bedroom door opened. Mom gasped.

“Chloe! Honey, you fell! Why didn’t you call out?”

Under the gauze, the sores itched and burned. I looked at my mother’s face and cried without making a sound.

“Mom,” I started, my voice a broken rasp. “The truth is, I’m…”

Before I could finish, her phone rang. The hospital.

“Chloe, honey, they found out at her birthday party… your sister has leukemia. I have to go to the hospital now. You be good, okay?”

She stroked my hair, her touch frantic.

“I’ll take care of this and then I’ll be right back to see you.”

She rushed out, a blur of motion and worry. I couldn’t bring myself to stop her.

They were all living in a prison of guilt because of me. Now my sister was sick. I couldn’t be selfish.

But all I wanted was to be their daughter.

The tears carved paths through the scarred, uneven terrain of my face, trickling into my mouth. They tasted bitter.

I’ll wait one more day, I told myself. Just one more day. When Mom has a clear head, I’ll tell her everything.

I waited with a fragile, fluttering hope. But it wasn’t Mom who came. It was Ethan.

“Chloe? You awake?”

I was startled. It had been years since he’d used my name with such softness. He was carrying a bag full of gifts, and inside, I could see the plush pink of a stuffed rabbit, my favorite as a child. I hadn’t received a gift from him since the day he brought Ava home.

Remembering what I’d overheard, I instinctively recoiled.

Ethan’s face darkened at my movement.

“Still holding a grudge, Chloe? You always do that. You look at me with those eyes. Every time I try to fix things between us, you ruin it.”

I didn’t dare defy him. I just lowered my head, my silence a shield.

“Where’s Mom?”

“She had to go away on business. Be back in a week. She told me to take good care of you.”

He leaned in, his voice conspiratorial and kind. “Don’t you want to get out? You’ve been stuck in this room for months. It must be suffocating. We haven’t done anything together, just the two of us, in forever.”

He paused, letting the silence hang. “Please, Chloe. Let me make it up to you. I know I was wrong. Just give me one chance to apologize.”

He gently placed the pink rabbit in my arms. The sincerity in his eyes was so overwhelming it felt real.

I was born premature. Mom always said it was Ethan who saved me, sitting by my incubator every day after school. When I was a picky eater in kindergarten, he was the only one who could patiently spoon-feed me, the only one who would let me ride on his shoulders when we went out to play.

After the fire, all of that became Ava’s.

I had seen him through the gap in my curtains, gently stroking Ava’s hair, pushing her on the swing in the backyard, driving her across the city just to chase a sunset. I watched it all like a mouse in the walls, peeking at a life that should have been mine.

Seeing me hesitate, Ethan wrapped his arms around me. For the first time in a decade, I felt a hug. It was hesitant, fragile, but it was there.

“Chloe,” he whispered, his voice thick. “You’re my only sister. I’m begging you.”

As he held me, his hand brushed against my back, and he felt the dampness of the sores through my clothes. His face twisted in rage. He stormed out of the room and unleashed a torrent of abuse on the nurse I had.

“Is this how you take care of my sister? Get on your knees and apologize to her! And don’t get up until she forgives you. Then get the hell out of my house!”

I watched the sharp line of his jaw as he defended me, a strange, electric current running through me. In that moment, forgetting everything else, I nodded.

Because of the extensive burns, I couldn't be in direct sunlight. Ethan wrapped me carefully in a thick blanket and carried me to the car, his movements gentle.

Over the years, my brother had cost me so many tears, so much of my heart. And yet, I didn’t hate him. As he drove, a giddy, reckless feeling bubbled up inside me.

For the first time since the fire, someone was taking me out of the tiny room that had been my world for a decade.

And then, the car pulled into the hospital parking lot.

2

“Ethan, you said we were going out to play.”

My voice was a ragged croak. The fire had damaged my vocal cords, and every word felt like swallowing needles.

A flash of impatience crossed his face.

“We are. But your sister is sick. We’re just stopping to get you tested for a match first.”

He looked at me in the rearview mirror, his eyes cold.

“Chloe, you can’t be so selfish. I know the fire was hard on you, but Ava is the real daughter of this family. If you do this, the Hayes family will be even more grateful to you. Do you understand?”

My world narrowed to a single point.

How could I not be selfish?

I was their real daughter. The fire wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t…

“Mom said… she said I don’t have to.”

It was the first lie I had told in a long time. It was the first time I had ever fought back.

Ethan exploded. “Mom is just guilty! She’s not thinking straight, and neither are you! It’s not a big deal! If you’re still pissed at me, take it out on me, not Ava!”

They held me down while they drew the blood.

The results came back quickly. To Ethan’s profound disappointment, I was not a match.

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