I had a secret: I fell in love with my uncle, though we shared no blood relation.
When I was twenty, his fiancée stumbled upon hundreds of love letters tucked away in a drawer. My secret was laid bare.
She forced him to send me abroad for my studies, hoping to erase me from his life. But fate had other plans. A giant tumor in my abdomen forced me to suspend my studies and return home.
She seized the opportunity to tarnish my name, spreading vile rumors that I was pregnant by a foreign man. She claimed I had returned to secretly give birth.
Her venom knew no bounds. She coerced him into taking me to an abortion clinic and later locked me in the old house under watchful eyes.
In her deluded jealousy, she believed I had conceived his child while he was abroad. To punish me, she cast me into a black-market clinic, where they opened my abdomen, seeking an "illegitimate child."
Only when the truth emerged, a tumor, not a baby, did she realize her mistake. But her cruelty remained unshaken. She ordered them to stitch me back up and left me to rot in the old house, abandoned and broken.
I clung to life for over half a year, but not once did my uncle come to see me.
A year after my death, they found my decayed body in the old house. He did nothing.
No outrage, no grief. He simply continued his blissful married life, untouched by guilt.
When I woke up, reborn on the day those love letters were uncovered, I vowed to change everything. This time, I wouldn’t love him.
Without hesitation, I picked up the phone and called my supervisor.
"Professor, I’ve decided to join the field exploration team in the mountains. I’ll meet you at the airport in seven days!"
——
I strode to my bedroom door and found Monica Miller sitting at my desk, her fingers rifling through the hundreds of unsent love letters in the drawer.
In my past life, I had confronted her with anger, my emotions spilling uncontrollably. This time, I chose differently.
I approached her with a calm, confident smile and retrieved the letters from her hands.
"Auntie, are you helping me organize my desk? Don’t trouble yourself, I can handle it!"
The word "Auntie" made her freeze, her fingers trembling as she stared at me. For a moment, the love letters slipped from her thoughts.
Her eyes widened in shock and her voice carried an edge of curiosity. "What did you just call me? You’ve always called me Sister Monica before, haven’t you?"
I tilted my head slightly, giving her a knowing smile.
"Auntie, are you really still trying to keep it a secret? I overheard my uncle talking about your wedding plans with the family yesterday. Aren’t you officially my aunt now?"
Monica squinted at me, her gaze laced with a teasing charm, the corners of her lips curling.
"Really? Are you trying to flatter me?"
I nodded earnestly, my voice insistent.
"Really! Really! Really!"
She didn’t press to open the envelopes I held, but her suspicion lingered. She raised an eyebrow, her tone dripping with curiosity.
"Sylvia Peterson, are these letters written for your uncle? No wonder I’ve always thought the way you look at him is a little... unusual. You’ve got feelings for him, don’t you?"
Monica pursed her lips as if piecing together a puzzle. I knew her suspicion was directed at the hundreds of love letters, each of them addressed to the same name: Cedar Adams.
I replied casually, "Auntie, are you talking about how I look at my uncle? You know me, I wouldn’t dare meet his eyes! I’m terrified of him! Honestly, who in this family isn’t afraid of him?"
What I said was true. Even Monica, despite her boldness, had her moments of fear around him.
But my fear wasn’t born out of intimidation. I had been brought into the family when I was just eight years old and it was Cedar who raised me.
After my parents’ tragic accident, he, a close friend of theirs, took me in, refusing to entrust my care to anyone else. He had raised me himself every step of the way.
Yet, as I grew older, the innocence of my affection for him began to twist into something forbidden.
On my eighteenth birthday, I drank for the first time and the warmth of the alcohol loosened the chains on my heart. Fueled by reckless courage, I confessed my feelings to him.
His reaction was immediate and merciless. He was furious, calling me shameless and his words cut deeper than any blade.
From that day, I buried my feelings so deeply that they could only emerge on paper. Every ounce of my love lived in those letters I could never send.
