Where Petals of Vengeance Bloom

Chapter 414

The family I had longed for never once longed for me.

June 21, 2007. Monday. Drizzling.

Today, I got punished again.

The injustice and helplessness weighed so heavily on me, I started to wonder if this house had ever truly been my home.

Before I left for school this morning, I scribbled a note and left it on the kitchen table: If you don't want me here, maybe I should just go back to the orphanage.

If there's no love left, there's no point in torturing each other like this.

After all, I've gotten used to being alone. Loneliness is a lot easier to bear than the feeling of being looked down on every day.

With these tangled thoughts, I trudged to school, dragging my feet. All day, I couldn't focus-memories of everything that had happened at home kept looping in my mind.

So, when classes ended that evening, I biked straight back to the orphanage.

through my clothes as I rode. But when the familiar gates of the orphanage finally came into view, I

my bike,

drenched and shivering, and without a word of concern, slapped me hard across the

hand echoed through the drizzle, stinging my cheek,

We've been searching for you all these years. We finally bring you home, and the

wild with anger, as if I'd committed

desperately to explain, “Dad, I'm not trying to threaten

could finish, my

crying, her voice shaking as she accused me, “You come back this late-where have you been? Are you running around with the

disappointment and anger, her tears a

brother strode over, his words like knives: "If you ever embarrass the Linwood family, I'll break your legs myself. I'd rather keep

their eyes, I was nothing but

me back to the

stepped inside, my brother turned to me coldly:

bother going

only chance I ever had to change my life. How could I possibly