I'd gotten up from bed about thirty minutes after Mrs. Wen left.
Lying there wasn't helping. The thoughts just kept spiraling: news articles, comment sections, Feifei's face, my family's disgust.
Except they're not really my family, are they?
I died choking on coffee in a cubicle. Woke up in this body, in this life, with memories that aren't mine and a family that never knew the real me.
So why does it hurt so much that they hate me?
Maybe because Original Runze cared, his memories are tangled up with mine now, his feelings bleeding through. The desperate need for his parents' approval, the love he had for Feifei, all of it is still there under my skin even though logically I know these people are strangers.
Or maybe because I never had anyone in my past life either, no family, no one who gave a damn if I lived or died. So when I woke up in a body that had parents, a sister, people who were supposed to care, I wanted it to be real.
But the pain is real either way.
