Reclaiming My Stolen Legacy

“The scent of fresh paint used to be my sanctuary, a promise of a future forged in art alongside Liam, my fiancé, and Chloe, my adoptive sister. But that future shattered the moment I saw my masterpiece, the one I' d poured my soul into for six months, on an easel between them, while Liam declared Chloe "a true genius." They left me in the gallery, a ghost in my own stolen dreams, my heart meticulously dismantled. I died alone, forgotten, my name erased from my own work, replaced by Chloe' s. Now, I'm back, returned to the critical moment before it all went wrong, eighteen years old, a month before the exhibition, before everything was stolen. When Liam' s name lit up my phone, instead of fluttering with excitement, my past life flashed before my eyes-the betrayal, the theft, the illness that ended me. This time, the phone rang unanswered. He was persistent, but when I finally picked up, my voice was cold, decisive: "The engagement is off. We're done." His furious pounding later felt like the drumbeat of a new life, as I stared at the man I once thought was my world, now just a shallow reminder of what I'd left behind. He sneered, "This is about Chloe, isn't it? You're jealous of her talent, her fire." Little did he know, the fire raging inside me was not jealousy, but an inferno of righteous fury, sparked by a terrible truth whispered behind closed doors: Chloe wasn't just stealing my art; she had stolen my entire life the day I was born. Now, I wasn' t just fighting for my art; I was fighting for my very identity, ready to burn their world to the ground to get it back.”