In the middle of the night, I was jolted awake by screams and crying.

As I sat up, my door was kicked open from the outside.

My stepmother rushed in crying, and before I could react, she slapped me hard across the face, several times.

"How could you be so cruel?"

"Wasn't hurting her this morning enough? Did you have to try and kill her too?"

My stepmother collapsed into my father's arms, sobbing. "She knew Cera has a severe peach allergy, and she deliberately poured peach juice on her bed and pillow."

"She's trying to kill our daughter!"

"That's enough crying. Cera got an adrenaline shot in time. She's going to be fine."

My father soothed her gently, then turned to me with disgust. "Rosalie, you have disappointed me beyond words."

"Move out tomorrow."

"Keeping you in this house is just going to tear our family apart."

My stepmother's sobs immediately stopped.

I looked at the man in front of me. He was once my closest family, the patriarch of the Moretti family.

He had once loved me dearly. I was his only child, the apple of his eye.

But somewhere along the way, everything changed.

I was like a character in a play who had been stripped of her spotlight, left with nothing.

At first, I didn't understand. I cried, I fought, I argued.

But now, I finally understood.

The bond between us, father and daughter, was completely broken.

The day I moved out of the Moretti estate, my father said to me, "After the anniversary of your mother's passing, I'll bring you back home."

I didn't answer.

After they left, I took all the photos I had of Julian and me, of my father and me.

I cut them all into tiny pieces and burned them.

Finally, I cut up the wedding dress that I had ordered three years ago.

The one I had secretly commissioned after Julian's family first proposed our marriage alliance.

It was the sacred gown I had dreamed of since I was a girl, the one I would wear to marry the man I loved.

Now, I had destroyed it with my own hands.