I Sold My Heart To Forget Them—Now They Beg Me To Remember novel Chapter 9

Returning to the Lancaster Estate again. I was so shocked that I didn’t know where to look.

The front door had been defaced with frightening graffiti.

[Rot in hell]

Your whole family will pay]

Hypocrite]

Theodore carefully avoided the paint and pushed the half–open door.

The living room lay bare before us.

The table was smashed. The chairs were broken. The sofa had burn marks.

Bloodstained clothes were scattered across the spiral staircase.

I covered my mouth, nearly vomiting.

Gabrielle, horrified and heartbroken, immediately tried to pull me away.

But Theodore, for once, held her back.

‘Mom, she needs to see this through. This is her battle. Let her decide.”

I clenched my fists and looked at Caleb, who had been silent since we entered.

‘You drag me all the way here just to play mute? Where are they? Your parents? Your precious sister?”

He swayed on his feet, his cracked lips trembling.

‘Dad’s in the hospital. Mom’s in her room. Sophie… Sophie’s in psychiatric institute.”

My heart clenched. “You lied to me! You said they were all home, that Mom was only sick!”

“Not my mom! Our mom, Emma!”

“No. She’s not!” I was so angry I could barely breathe,

“So you lied to get me here. What do you want?”

prielle. I shot him a wary look, shifting my body to shield Gabrielle.

Caleb shook his head urgently. “N–no, I didn’t want to hurt you. It’s true–Mom is really dying she-

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Before he could finish. Margaret staggered out of her room.

She was in a threadbare nightgown, her hair a tangled mess, her face gaunt and hollow

The moment she saw me, she lurched forward and nearly fell down the stairs.

*Emma, my Emma! My sweet girl, does it hurt? Does it hurt?*

Her bony hands parted my hair, carefully feeling my neck.

“Emma, my child! Mommy is so sorry!”

Her voice hoarse, crying almost into silence.

“It was your father and me who trusted the wrong people. We let them into our home. They destroyed you!”

“My baby, were you so scared? You wanted me to hold you, but I… I should have held you.”

“I should never have let them take you! My Emma!!*

Tears splashed onto her hands. We both froze.

Then she cried even louder.

Yet my heart calmed again.

So… she’s crying for me.

For the daughter who was dragged away, screaming and coughing up blood.

For the girl who clawed at the car door, begging for one last hug from a mother who just stood there.

“Stop your hysterics, Emmeline!”

“Without you, I still have a perfect family. A smart, hardworking son who adores his sister. A sweet, obedient daughter who respects her elders.”

“How did we ever raise someone like you? You’re a disgrace to this family!”

A disgrace… Those were the last words my mother ever spoke to me. In that life.

I’d figured it out a while ago. She was starting to remember.

Once, during senior year, a teacher asked me, confused, if I had a nickname I went by as a kid. “Emmeline.” she said.

“Your mother used to text me all the time, asking me to look after you. It was always normal. But the last two weeks. she keeps getting your name wrong.”

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She told herself it was a dream.

This time. I didn’t act out to gain attention.

In her mind. I had always been the same spoiled yet affectionate daughter I was before age twelve.

She couldn’t accept it. Couldn’t believe that she was the one who’d sent her own daughter to a psychiatric hospital.

So she lost her mind first.

“Caleb, take her to the psychiatric institute. She’d fit in better there than Sophie ever did.”

Caleb, who had been silent and just crying. flinched slightly when he heard Sophie’s name.

Then he looked up at his mother. She was still muttering to herself, completely lost.

He slowly sank down onto the floor.

On the way to the doctors. I finally pieced together everything from Caleb’s jumbled words.

Three years ago, when Sophie heard Margaret regretting adopting her, she completely lost it.

The sweet, demure act vanished. What was left was pure paranoia. Pure cruelty.

She became harsh to others, harsher to herself.

She started hurting herself. A lot. Stayed up all night, ran to her parents‘ rooms with a knife, slicing her arms to bleed.

She’d cry while she did it, talk about how her dying father had entrusted her to Harold. How much she loved them. How she couldn’t bear to be abandoned.

The Lancasters were terrified.

They dared not mention anything about “sending her away.”

They walked on eggshells around her. But it wasn’t out of care anymore. It was fear.

She still lacked a sense of security.

She demanded everyone stay with her day and night.

If anyone left, she screamed and scratched anything within reach with her nails.

Caleb and Dylan even took leaves of absence because she scratched their faces

This caused a huge rift between the Ashfords and the Lancasters.

Dylan stopped coming around so much.

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For three years, they tried God. how they tried but they couldn’t stop a

A month before the SAT. Margaret started to lose it

She’d sit alone in her room for hours, whispering a name

Sophie, thinking she had finally returned to her, eagerly lunged to hug her.

But Margaret shoved her hard to the ground

The gentle look in her eyes was gone. The look in her eyes toward Sophie was pure disgust

It happened a few times before Sophie understood Her mother wasn’t calling her.

She was calling someone else. Someone who wasn’t there Emmeline.”

That neglect, that humiliation–it was too much. Her paranola got worse. She tormented everyone around her even

more.

When she overheard the Lancasters planning to sever ties with her after her 18th birthday, she grabbed paint and splashed the entire front door.

I’ll expose you all! You abused your dead friend’s daughter! You’ll rot in hell!”

But the three of them inside were already broken. Hollow.

They just sat there on the sofa, slumped over, watching her madness unfold.

The night before the SAT, she made Caleb stay up and go to a bar with her.

When Caleb said he didn’t want to go, she slashed her wrist.

Caleb panicked. He patched her up and followed her out.