Elara's POV
The champagne glass slips from my hand.
It happens in slow motion—the crystal tumbling through the air, the golden liquid splashing across the white marble floor, the sharp crack as it shatters. But nobody notices. Every single person in this massive ballroom is staring at the screen behind Adrian, their mouths hanging open.
And on that screen is a photo of my fiancé kissing my sister.
"Surprised, Elara?" Adrian's voice booms through the microphone, but it's different now. Cold. Mean. Nothing like the sweet tone he used when he proposed three months ago. "Did you really think I could love someone like you?"
My heart stops. This isn't real. This is a nightmare. I'm going to wake up any second now.
But then another photo appears. And another. Adrian with Lydia at a restaurant. Adrian with Lydia in his car. Adrian with Lydia in—
"Two years," Adrian announces, grinning like he just won a prize. "That's how long your 'sister' and I have been together. Two whole years while you followed me around like a lost puppy."
The room erupts in gasps and whispers. I can't breathe. My chest feels like someone's crushing it with both hands.
This morning, I woke up thinking today would be the best day of my life. My engagement party. The day I finally become part of a real family. I spent six months saving every penny from my coffee shop job to buy this silver dress. I practiced my thank-you speech forty times in the mirror. I even bought Adrian's favorite cologne as a surprise gift.
What an idiot I am.
"Elara, sweetie, don't look so shocked," Lydia's voice cuts through my panic. She steps onto the stage, linking her arm through Adrian's. Her red dress probably costs more than I make in a year. "You had to know this was coming. I mean, look at you. Look at us. Did you honestly believe you belonged in this world?"
I want to run. I want to disappear. But my legs won't move. It's like I'm frozen in place while everyone stares at me with pity or disgust or barely hidden laughter.
"Lydia, that's enough," my adoptive father's voice rings out. For one wild second, hope flares in my chest. He's going to defend me. He's going to—
"We should tell her the rest," he says calmly, walking up to join Adrian and Lydia on the stage. My adoptive mother follows, her face completely blank.
The rest? What rest?
Mr. Moss—I've never been allowed to call him Dad—looks directly at me. "Elara, your mother and I think it's time you knew the truth about your adoption."
No. No, no, no.
"We didn't adopt you because we wanted another daughter," he continues, like he's discussing the weather. "We adopted you because Lydia needed a genetic match. You were insurance. A backup plan in case she ever needed an organ transplant."
The words hit me like punches. Each one knocking the air from my lungs.
"Fortunately, Lydia has remained healthy," Mrs. Moss adds, examining her perfect nails. "Which means you've outlived your usefulness."
Someone in the crowd laughs. Then another person. Soon, the whole room is filled with cruel laughter and excited whispers.
"Oh my god, she actually thought they loved her!"
"How pathetic."
"I heard she works at a coffee shop. Imagine thinking you could marry into the Moss family fortune."
"Look at her face! Someone take a picture!"
And they do. Phones come out everywhere, flashing as people capture my humiliation. I see them typing frantically—posting to social media, sending messages, sharing my nightmare with the world.
My phone buzzes in my tiny purse. Then again. And again. Within seconds, it's vibrating nonstop.
Adrian grabs the microphone again. "Oh, and Elara? You're also fired. Can't have someone with such a... scandalous reputation working at my family's coffee shop. And about your apartment—since my family owns that building, consider this your eviction notice. You have three days."
The room spins. I can't see straight. Can't think. Can't—
"Get her out of here," Lydia says, waving her hand dismissively. "She's ruining my party."
Two security guards appear at my sides. Their hands clamp on my arms—not gentle, not careful. They drag me toward the exit while everyone watches and records. I don't even fight. What's the point?
The last thing I hear before the ballroom doors slam shut is Adrian's voice: "Now, where were we? Oh yes—Lydia and I have an announcement. We're getting married next month!"
Cheers and applause follow me into the cold hallway.
I don't remember leaving the hotel. Don't remember walking through the city streets. When I finally look up, I'm soaked through—it's pouring rain and I have no idea how long I've been wandering.
My phone died an hour ago, but not before I saw the damage. The photos are everywhere. Social media is exploding with hashtags: #GoldDiggerExposed #MossFamily #PathenticElara. Someone even made memes. My face photoshopped onto a crying emoji. My face on a clown. My face with the words "Imagine being this stupid."
Three years. I loved Adrian for three years. Loved Lydia since we were kids, even when she was mean to me. Spent thirteen years trying to earn my adoptive parents' love.
All of it was a lie.
The rain gets heavier but I don't care. Let it wash me away. Let me disappear completely.
Finally, my feet carry me to my apartment building. My soon-to-be-former apartment. I climb the stairs slowly, my beautiful silver dress dragging behind me, ruined and muddy.
Inside my tiny studio, everything is exactly how I left it this morning. The cheerful plants crowding every surface. The secondhand furniture I fixed up myself. The framed photo of me and Adrian that now makes me want to vomit.
I collapse onto the floor, not even making it to the bed. My plants surround me like silent witnesses to my complete destruction. The basil on the windowsill. The ivy trailing down the bookshelf. The struggling succulent I rescued from the trash last week.
"I have nothing left," I whisper to them, because talking to plants is all I have now. "No family. No job. No home. No future. I'm completely alone."
The words hang in the air. True. Final. Devastating.
I cry until my throat is raw and my eyes burn. Until the carpet under me is soaked with tears and rainwater. Until I feel like there's nothing left inside me but emptiness.
That's when I hear it.
A voice.
Not from outside. Not from another apartment. It's inside my head, soft as a whisper, gentle as wind through leaves.
"You are not alone, daughter of gardens. You have never been alone."
I freeze, my breath catching. That voice—it sounds like rustling leaves, like water over stones, like growing things stretching toward sunlight.
It sounds like... my plants?
"I'm losing my mind," I mutter, pressing my palms against my eyes. "Great. Add 'going crazy' to my list of disasters."
"Look at us," the voice insists, stronger now. "Really look."
Against my better judgment, I open my eyes.
And that's when I see it.
The basil plant on my windowsill is moving. Not swaying like there's a breeze—there is no breeze. It's moving toward me, its leaves reaching, stretching, like it's trying to touch me. The ivy on my bookshelf trembles, its vines shifting restlessly. Even the half-dead succulent suddenly looks greener, healthier.
My heart pounds. This isn't possible. Plants don't move on their own. Plants don't—
"Wake up," the voice says, and this time it's not just one voice. It's dozens. Hundreds. Every plant in my apartment speaking as one. "Wake up and see what you really are."
The basil plant grows six inches in three seconds.
I scramble backward, hitting the wall. My hands are shaking. My whole body is shaking.
Something warm brushes against my leg and I nearly scream—but it's just Silver, the stray cat I've been feeding for three years. He must have snuck in when I left the window cracked this morning.
"Silver," I breathe, relief flooding through me. At least something is normal. At least—
Silver sits in front of me, staring with his strange green-gold eyes. And then, as I watch in absolute terror and confusion, he begins to glow.
His small body shivers. Light pours from his fur—silver and gold and something that looks like starlight. The air around him ripples like heat waves.
"No," I whisper, pressing harder against the wall. "No, no, no—"
Silver's form shifts. Stretches. Changes.
Where a scraggly alley cat sat two seconds ago, there's now a person.
A man.
Tall, with silver hair falling past his shoulders, eyes that glow like molten metal, and a face so beautiful it doesn't look quite human. He's wearing dark clothes that seem to appear from nowhere, and there's something about him—something ancient and powerful and absolutely terrifying.
He looks at me, and his expression is gentle. Familiar. Like I've known him forever.
When he speaks, his voice is the same purr I've heard a thousand times—but deeper, richer, unmistakably human.
"Hello, Elara," he says softly. "I've waited thirteen years for you to finally see me."
My vision goes dark around the edges. The last thing I see before I faint is the man who used to be my cat reaching for me, and the plants in my apartment growing wild and green, reaching toward me like they're trying to catch me when I fall.