Chapter 1 Help Me

• If I could turn back time, I wouldn't have asked for that wish on my birthday.
• It's not that I'm not grateful that my wish was granted. It's just that this is more torturous to my life, torturous to my psyche.
• I want to run away.
• However, I had nowhere to go from my home. A home that consisted of my parents, as well as my two older brothers. I was the last member in this harmonious family.
• Ah, harmony ....
• We only looked good to others. Behind their friendly smiles, we kept secrets. Secrets that I knew in silence. I kept it in my memory and only watched them act with each other.
• Maybe to other people, my parents were a romantic couple. They didn't know that mom and dad actually had their own dark lovers. I had caught them in secret several times, making out with other people.
• Meanwhile, my second brother, Carey, was secretly using drugs. I don't know where she got them from. If you rummage through her room, you're bound to find that forbidden packet.
• But Carey knew that to escape the law, he stuffed the servants' mouths with money. Since they cleaned her room regularly, they were directly aware of the secret object being hidden.
• In any case, Carey's brother is a pretty normal person to me compared to the first brother.
• My first brother is named Calvin. There's not much I can describe about him, other than one word for him, psychopath.
• Calvin wasn't just a psychopath. He was obsessed with me. It was his psychopathic nature that often gave me goosebumps. If likened to an animal, then a snake is the right form to describe him.
• Calvin is poisonous. Deadly. But alluring.
• With the level of good looks inherited from our father when he was young, he easily attracted women just by passing in front of them.
• At first they were all indifferent and cold to me - who was still a child at the time. It made me feel disregarded and ignored by my own family. Even when I had a fever, only the servants took care of me.
• Then, at the age of nine on that day, my close friend at school named Stephen, gave me a medium-sized cake cup complete with a small candle stuck in.
• Stephen asked me to make a wish before blowing out the candle. I complied.
• Do you know what I wished for before the candle flame went out?
• I asked God for my entire family to love me very much.
• It was a simple request, but I didn't expect it to be granted. I was happy at first. However, the older I grew, the more my mind developed that I began to regret that request.
• "Clara, I have found your fiancé. You can talk to him the day after tomorrow to get to know him," I said today while we were having breakfast together.
• "What!" exclaimed Carey, pounding the table.
• "Dad! It hasn't been a month since she called off the engagement. Now you're already pitching her a new one?" protested Carey.
• I thought my father was obsessed with getting me married to the man of his choice. Yet again and again it failed. Because I rejected those men. Last month's engagement cancellation was the fifth time.
• Father also didn't force me to continue our relationship if I didn't like it. That's right, I didn't like it as a classic excuse. But there were other people involved in this arranged marriage.
• Can you guess who?
• Calvin.
• "Okay, father. I'll have a meeting with him," I replied calmly. The calmness and smile on my face was a mere mask to hide my nervousness around Calvin who felt intimidating in his silence.
• "Our sister is very obedient. I hope Clara won't be upset anymore," Calvin's heavy voice said.
• All of my romantic hairs bristled when his voice wafted by the side of my ear, because he was sitting right behind me, holding me on the dining chair, in front of them.
• I don't want to think you exist, Calvin! I wish too, that my fiancé-to-be could take me out of this house!
• The day after tomorrow, come quickly!
• I have to succeed in the engagement to get away from Calvin!
• My name is Clara Jaromir. We are rich, but my life is not as happy as that of a princess at court.
• ***