He Regretted Adopting Me for Her

At five years old, I was adopted by the Andres family.

But it took them ten years to find out that on the very day they adopted me, their real daughter had been there too.

They just happened to choose me instead.

I was the one who was supposed to die in her place.

After that, they were filled with regret and remorse.

They wished I had never entered their lives at all.

Cooper Andres stood by and did nothing, time after time, whenever I was falsely accused.

"Smile. You love smiling, don't you?"

"Back then, if you hadn't flashed that disgusting smile at me, I would have chosen Claire!"

"Daisy, you're the one who killed Claire. You."

When he found out I was carrying his child, Cooper forced me onto the operating table.

That time, I lost both my life and the baby's.

Then I opened my eyes again.

I was back on the day they came to the orphanage.

---

"Daisy, what are you doing hiding up here?"

Ms. Laura, one of the staff at the orphanage, rushed over and carried me down from the rooftop.

"Ms. Laura, I... I don't want to go."

Laura gently patted the back of my hand.

"Silly girl, the Andres family is here today. They're loaded."

"If they pick you, you'll never have to worry about a thing for the rest of your life."

"Make sure you smile, okay?"

A chill ran through me.

I thought of how Cooper, in my past life, would demand I smile over and over again, no matter what was happening.

He made me smile when I was falsely accused of stealing.

He made me smile when rumors were spread about me.

And even when he found out I was pregnant with his child, he only paused for a moment before telling me to smile anyway.

To smile while I got rid of the baby.

I pressed my lips together.

And finally, the moment the luxury car pulled up, I slipped away and hid in the storage room.

This life, I absolutely, absolutely, absolutely refused to have anything to do with the Andres family ever again.

I must have fallen asleep at some point, because when they found me later, I heard that the Andres family had left without adopting anyone.

I didn't know why.

But I didn't care either.

That night, I lay in bed and looked around at the thirty-some kids sharing the dorm with me.

I had no idea which one of them was the Andres family's real daughter.

According to what the Andres family had said, she was somewhere in this room right now.

I didn't want any more contact with the Andres family than necessary.

But I also remembered the first ten years after they adopted me in my past life. Mr. and Mrs. Andres had been genuinely kind to me. Cooper too.

I thought, if their real daughter could find her way back to them in this life, maybe that would count as repaying the kindness they'd shown me before everything fell apart.

But before I could do anything about it, the Andres family came back a second time.

This time, all the girls around five or six years old were asked to give blood samples.

In my past life, that had never happened.

When I came out after giving blood, I saw Cooper walking toward me, his expression cold and unreadable.

Something stirred in me.

Word was that it had been the Andres family's young heir who requested the blood tests.

Could it be that Cooper had been reborn too?

I looked down and stepped to the side to avoid him.

A pair of expensive sneakers paused in front of me for just a moment, then continued past.

The next day, I noticed one of my dormmates was gone.

I remembered her a quiet little girl who cried all the time. A total crybaby.

I never expected that the little crybaby would turn out to be the Andres family's real daughter.

The peace didn't last two days before the Andres family showed up again.

This time, they said they wanted to adopt a companion for their daughter.

And this time, I had nowhere to hide.

All of us, myself included, lined up in a row, waiting for the Andres family to make their choice.

The first one out of the car was their real daughter.

The little crybaby who used to cry at everything had already become a princess everyone wanted to protect.

Cooper held her the entire time, only setting her down when they reached us.

"Claire!" Several girls rushed toward her, eyes shining with excitement.

Even though we were all young, the kids here had learned to think ahead.

Everyone knew that if you got to go home with Claire today, you'd get to wear pretty dresses like hers someday.

You'd live in a big house.

You'd have people looking after you.

Every pair of eyes was fixed on Claire.

But for some reason, Claire walked straight up to me.

My body moved before my brain could catch up.

I shoved Claire to the ground.

"Claire!"

"Daisy!"

"Claire!"

---

That day, Ms. Laura made me stand in the corner facing the wall for three hours as punishment.

I figured that after shoving Claire like that, there was no way the Andres family would ever adopt me.

But three days later, I was sitting in the back of their car.

Ms. Laura told me the Andres family had chosen me. The paperwork was already done.

It hit me like a shock of electricity.

But it was done, and I had no choice but to accept it.

At least Claire was easy to be around.

And Mr. and Mrs. Andres were just as warm and caring as they had been in those first ten years of my past life.

The only one in the house who was cold toward me was Cooper.

He almost never spoke to me.

But sometimes I'd catch him watching me in silence.

A few days later, at dinner, I heard Cooper make a suggestion to Mr. and Mrs. Andres.

"Dad, can we get the orphanage set up with proper heating?"

I went still and looked down at my plate.

Honestly, I'd been trying to figure out the same thing for days.

In my past life, the orphanage caught fire because of a faulty electric blanket. The place was always short on funding, so they'd been using the same blanket for years.

"Of course. That was an oversight on our part," Mr. Andres said.

"They took care of Claire for years. The least we can do is give something back."

In the end, the Andres family not only had proper heating installed, they also donated ten million dollars to the orphanage.

I had been racking my brain trying to figure out how to prevent what happened, and come up with nothing.

Cooper solved it with a single sentence.

I still kept my distance from him.

But honestly, I was grateful.

Setting aside everything that happened between us in my past life Cooper's second chance at life had genuinely changed things for the better for a lot of people.

---

Years passed in a blink, and Claire and I were in high school.

Life with the Andres family during those years was quiet and comfortable.

With Claire back where she belonged, the family's business had grown even bigger than it had in my past life.

Cooper was still in college, but he had already started interning at the company.

Over those years, I barely had any real contact with Cooper.

Partly because I went out of my way to avoid him.

But Cooper had always kept his distance from me too.

The contrast between how he treated me and how he doted on Claire was impossible to miss.

Mr. and Mrs. Andres noticed, and so did Claire. They both seemed to feel a little bad about it from time to time.

Claire especially, since she'd always been a crybaby from the time she was small.

And I understood why I'd been brought into the Andres household in the first place. I was there to take care of Claire.

So for all those years, outside of school, my life basically revolved around her.

No matter the situation, Claire always came first for me.

And Claire depended on me just as much.

So when everyone found out that I didn't want to go to the private school where Claire was enrolled, and instead had applied to a public high school, Mr. and Mrs. Andres were stunned.

Even Cooper looked at me differently.

"Daisy, why do you suddenly want to go to a public school?"

"Right I mean, your grades are great, but our family really doesn't need you to push yourself that hard."

Claire nodded along, eyes already glistening.

I tightened my grip on my hands under the table.

She was right about one thing. A family like the Andres family didn't need their kids to take the hard road.

They'd already mapped out their children's futures long before any decisions needed to be made. Private school, then studying abroad.

Especially with Cooper being as accomplished as he was.

As long as Claire and I played by the rules, we'd be comfortable for the rest of our lives.

But I didn't want that.

This life, I wanted to live on my own terms.

So for the first time, the girl who had always done what she was told dug in her heels.

The whole family took turns trying to talk me out of it, but I wouldn't budge.

In the end, it was Cooper who came through for me.

He said, "Let her do what she wants."

Just those few words.

And with that, I got into the top public high school in the city.

---

Once high school started, I left early every morning and came home late every night.

After evening study sessions, I'd often stay even later before finally heading back.

One time, the Andres family driver dropped me off at the school gate and a classmate saw.

After that, I turned down the rides and started taking the bus to school instead.

Mr. and Mrs. Andres didn't fully understand, but they respected my decision.

At first, being separated from Claire every day felt a little strange.

But I was quickly buried under the weight of the coursework, and there wasn't much time to think about anything else.

One evening after study hall, I stayed behind to work through a problem that had been giving me trouble. By the time the security guard came to check the building, it was almost eleven.

I rushed to the bus stop, but the last bus had already gone.

Fortunately, in this life, the Andres family had always taken care of me. Even though I tried to spend as little of their money as possible, I never let my account drop below a healthy amount.

I pulled up a rideshare app on my phone and booked a car.

The moment I got in, I noticed something off about the way the driver was looking at me.

"Still in school, huh, sweetheart?"

His voice had a greasy quality to it.

Our school had a strict uniform policy, so the question wasn't exactly innocent.

I gave a flat "mm-hm" and set an alarm on my phone. One minute from now.

Then my phone rang.

I thought it was the alarm, but when I looked at the screen, it was Cooper.

I hesitated, then answered.

"Where are you?" His voice was low on the other end.

I was quiet for a second.

"You're just heading home now? You took a rideshare?"

I said yes.

"Send me the license plate. Where are you right now?"

I glanced out the window and gave him a street address. It happened to be near the entrance to a night market, so there were still plenty of people around.

"Get out of the car now and wait. I'm coming to get you."

"No, no, it's fine, I can get home on my own."

I kept refusing.

There was a pause on his end, and then the line went dead.

Right away, a message came through from Cooper.

"License plate."

I had no choice but to send it to him.

The rest of the ride was dead quiet.

When we arrived, I saw someone standing at the intersection a little way off.

When Cooper saw me step out, he turned and walked without a word.

I followed silently behind him.

Then, out of nowhere, his voice came back.

"Are you scared of me?"

My steps faltered.

In my past life, it was around this same time that the truth came out that Claire had been at the orphanage the day I was adopted.

Back then, I had faced Mr. and Mrs. Andres's cold looks and Cooper's burning resentment.

Overnight, I went from being their cherished daughter to an unwanted stray.

Even though I was still enrolled at the private school, those classmates had a talent for reading the room.

The moment they sensed that the Andres family had turned on me, the trouble started.

Snakes showing up in my backpack.

Glue on my chair.

Prank after prank.

At first they were cautious, wary of the Andres name, wary of Cooper.

But once they realized no one was going to step in on my behalf, it escalated fast.

It all came to a head at a classmate's birthday party, when someone slipped something into my drink.

By the time I realized what had happened, it was already too late.

In a panic, I stumbled into Cooper's room.

That only made things worse. Cooper, who had already despised me, looked at me with a hatred so cold and absolute that it felt like being thrown into a frozen lake.

Mrs. Andres said I was vicious. That I couldn't let go of the family's wealth, that I had lost my mind trying to become Cooper's wife.

She said the Andres family must have wronged me in a past life, and that I had come back to collect.

Every word cut into me like a blade, slow and deliberate.

I wanted to leave. I wanted to run. I wanted to disappear.

But I had nowhere to go, and no money of my own.

Eventually I found the courage to walk away from the Andres family.

But without a degree or any real skills, all I could do was scrape by with a job at a coffee shop.

And then everything stopped when they found out I was pregnant.

Cooper forced me onto the operating table.

He said he would not allow me to have his child.

It disgusted him.

I had begged him. A cut I had gotten once wouldn't stop bleeding, and a doctor had told me that my blood didn't clot properly. Even a small wound, if left untreated, could kill me. And I genuinely was not in any condition to go through that procedure.

But Cooper went ahead anyway.

I didn't make it.

Though, in those last moments of my past life, I wasn't afraid.

I almost felt like leaving this world that way was... fine.

"Oof!"

Lost in those memories, I hadn't noticed Cooper had stopped walking.

I walked right into him.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

I stepped back quickly and apologized, eyes down.

He was wearing a camel-colored trench coat. Behind his gold-framed glasses, his eyes were dark and unreadable.

After a long moment, he turned and walked away without saying a word.

That night was nothing more than a small interruption.

What followed was an even heavier load of schoolwork.

Unlike my past life, the curriculum at a public school moved fast. By junior year, we had already covered most of what was usually left for senior year.

After that, it was all practice tests and SAT prep.