My mother had severe, obsessive-compulsive OCD. Because I was born five ounces heavier than my twin sister, Clara, my mother despised me from day one. Whenever I cried myself hoarse from hunger, she would pump her leftover breast milk, store it in the fridge, and save it only for Clara. She fed Clara eight times a day with that milk. Eventually, both Clara and I ended up in the hospital. I was admitted for severe malnutrition, while Clara was hospitalized for consuming spoiled food over a long period. But that wasn’t enough for Eleanor. As Clara grew plumper under her care, Eleanor couldn't stand how skinny and frail I was. She forced me to eat fatty pork—the one food she knew I was highly allergic to. I suffocated to death. But after I died, I found myself back inside my mother's womb... I was dead. My mother had forced me to eat that fatty pork. My throat swelled up instantly, blocking my airway, and I suffocated to death, gasping for air. Yet, after my death, I felt it again—the familiar, warm embrace of amniotic fluid. That womb was the only place I had ever felt any semblance of maternal warmth in my entire life. In the next second, a voice echoed. "Doctor, is there any way to make my two babies come out at the exact same time?" "Mrs. Vance, you are asking for the impossible. The birth canal is only so wide. It is biologically impossible for two babies to slide out simultaneously." Hearing this familiar conversation, a bolt of lightning flashed through my mind, sparking a fire of realization. Sure enough, the next line from my memory came right on cue. "I don't care! You must get them out at the exact same time! Otherwise, I’ll report you to the board for sexual harassment during delivery!" It was Eleanor. Her voice. As her words overlapped perfectly with my past life's memories, I knew. I had been reborn. I was back in my mother's womb, and she was currently on the delivery table. In my previous life, she had paid a fortune to a fortune teller to calculate the perfect, luckiest minute for her babies to be born. But she was carrying twins. Chloe and Clara. It was physically impossible for us to be born at the exact same second. And I, in my mother’s words, was greedy. I had fought to come out first, which immediately earned me the reputation of being a curse to the family. Clara, on the other hand, was the lucky one. She was born at the exact minute the fortune teller had predicted. So, when the doctor announced that I was five ounces heavier than Clara, Eleanor didn't even look at me. She furrowed her brow and immediately put me on a "diet." I didn’t get a single drop of breast milk. I was forced to fast. That was why I grew up malnourished. Later on, my body lost the ability to absorb nutrients properly, leaving me perpetually thin and weak. Since Eleanor had given birth to twins, her milk supply was abundant. She would pump the milk Clara couldn't finish, store it in the fridge, and feed Clara eight times a day. In the end, she successfully sent both of us to the ER. I went in for starvation; Clara went in for food poisoning from spoiled milk.
Right now, threatened by Eleanor, the delivering obstetrician was furious, but she had to swallow her anger and keep working. This time, however, I fought back. I struggled inside, desperately refusing to be born first. "We have a breech presentation!" "It's a difficult labor!" "To the husband, we highly recommend an emergency C-section. Please sign the consent form immediately." "No way! C-section babies are stupid! You can't cut her open. She has to have a natural birth!" That piercing, screeching voice belonged to my grandmother, Martha. She was the one who always enabled Eleanor's madness. The two of them always teamed up, leaving my father, Richard, completely speechless. So, Eleanor chose needless suffering. Risking severe postpartum hemorrhaging, she stubbornly pushed both Clara and me out naturally. Of course, she was too exhausted to frame the doctor for harassment this time. In this life, neither of us was the "lucky baby." We started on the exact same foot. But I was still five ounces heavier than Clara. "Mom, go buy ten more digital scales. I don't believe this. They are identical twins. How can their weights be different?" Eleanor frowned. After weighing Clara and me eight times on the scale, she dragged her hands through her hair in a fit of rage. Martha was a bully to outsiders, but in front of Eleanor, she was as obedient as a lamb. She immediately went out to buy more scales. But unfortunately, our weights fluctuated slightly on every single scale. Eleanor had a complete meltdown. She pointed at me, her face twisted with annoyance. "Take her away! She’s too aggressive. She must have stolen Clara’s nutrients while they were in my womb." "Starve her for a few feedings. That will teach her to be quiet." In my last life, my chronic stomach issues started right here. Having a second chance at life, I refused to let history repeat itself. But crying in front of Eleanor would do nothing but annoy her more. So, I waited. I kept my mouth shut until 4:00 PM—the exact time Richard usually came home from work. Then, I let out the most piercing, agonizing wail I could muster. The sound was so heartbreaking that Richard didn't even change his shoes. He practically flew into the house to find me. Just as my throat was about to blow out from screaming, Richard finally found me—stuffed inside the drum of the front-load washing machine.
Yes, I had been shoved into the washing machine. Eleanor had ordered Martha to starve me. But whenever Martha wasn't looking, I would crawl around looking for crumbs. Annoyed by my constant movement, Martha had simply thrown me into the washing machine drum. Out of sight, out of mind. "Eleanor! How could you let your mother put the baby in there?" Eleanor was genuinely shocked when she saw me in the washing machine. She didn't even yell back at Richard. Instead, she turned to Martha. "Mom, why did you put Chloe in the washing machine?" "Didn't you say she needed to lose weight? A few spins in the dryer would definitely shake the fat off her!" Hearing Martha’s ridiculous logic, the usually silent Richard finally snapped. "Martha, that machine is for laundry! She is a baby! What if you had killed her?" "What could possibly happen? I’m an elder, I have experience! Do you think I don't know what I'm doing?" "Mind your own business!" Seeing that Richard dared to talk back to her, Martha exploded, screaming and cursing at him. But Richard was truly angry this time. No matter how much she yelled, he didn't back down. Finally, Eleanor couldn't stand the noise and cut them off. "Richard! My mother is your elder. How dare you raise your voice at her?" "The baby is fine, isn't she? What is there to argue about?" Because Richard had been poor when they were young, and Eleanor had stayed with him through his early struggles, he always yielded to her out of gratitude. The moment Eleanor spoke, Richard's anger died down, though he muttered a resentful, "It’ll be too late when something actually happens." He picked me up and marched into his study. I tried to make him understand that I was starving. I grabbed his hand and began chewing on his fingers. He finally got the message, looked at me with pity, and carried me back to Eleanor for a feeding. But Eleanor looked at him coldly and slammed the door in his face. "She’s already five ounces heavier than Clara. Why on earth should she eat?"
I will never forget the look of sheer shock and fury on Richard’s face that day. No matter how hard he pounded on the door, no matter how much he yelled, Eleanor remained indifferent. Furious, Richard packed me up, drove straight to his office, bought baby formula, and began raising me himself. In my past life, I had never been put in the washing machine. Back then, Richard had come home in a rush, said a quick word to Eleanor, and immediately left on a business trip. I had always assumed he condoned her treatment of me. But now, I realized he actually loved me. During those days, as he constantly researched baby care online and asked coworkers for advice, I was raised wonderfully. I was healthy, chubby, and happy. But this change was eventually discovered when Eleanor decided to visit his office on a whim. And that was when her madness escalated to a whole new level. "Richard, didn't I tell you she wasn't allowed to eat? Why is she still so fat?" Eleanor’s fingers pinched hard into my baby fat. I burst into tears from the pain. Richard quickly rescued me from her grip. My healthy, chubby appearance was his absolute pride. These days, he loved showing me off to everyone, boasting that he raised me single-handedly, basking in their compliments. Hearing Eleanor call me fat made Richard extremely unhappy. "Babies are supposed to be chubby! Look how cute she is!" His tone was joyful, but Eleanor looked like she was about to lose her mind. She demanded that Richard pack up my things and bring me back to the family house immediately. I was put on those ten scales again. This time, I was a full pound heavier than Clara. We didn't even look like twins anymore; I looked like her older sister. Eleanor's face turned incredibly dark. Yet, Richard, who had developed a strong paternal instinct, was still babbling happily. "See how well I raised Chloe? Clara is way too thin. Why don't you let me take care of both of them?" "That way, you can get some rest, too." He meant well, but to Eleanor, his words were a direct mockery of her parenting and a disruption of her perfect plan.
"Richard, look at them! Do they even look like twins anymore? You’ve raised Chloe into a pig!" "They are twins! They are supposed to look exactly the same!" As Eleanor spoke, she began to cry tears of sheer frustration. Richard knew about her OCD, but still, he tried to reason with her. "It’s normal for twins to look a bit different, Eleanor." "There are no two identical people in the world. Besides, they could be fraternal twins..." Richard tried to talk science, but Eleanor couldn't hear a word. She slapped him across the face. "Richard! I don't care about other people! My children must be identical!" "Look at what you dressed her in! And her hair! Her weight! Everything is wrong!" In Eleanor's eyes, everything was Richard’s fault. If I could speak, I would have asked her: "Why can't it be that your parenting is just terrible?" "Why do I have to shape my life to match Clara’s?" I was the older twin, yet in both lives, Eleanor favored Clara, making her the gold standard for everything. Having been slapped for no reason, Richard’s patience snapped. The anger he had suppressed for years finally erupted, and he roared back at her. "Eleanor Vance! Do you honestly believe you are the only correct person in this entire world?" "Squeezing the toothpaste from the middle is a crime to you! Stepping into the house with my left foot first is a crime! Wearing a gray tie with a black suit is a crime! Even the order in which I eat my dinner is a crime in this house!" "And now, raising a child to be healthy is a crime too?" "Eleanor, you are the one who is sick! I have had enough of your madness!" Richard looked magnificent. He had voiced the very questions I had kept locked in my heart for over a decade in my past life. Eleanor was stunned into silence. I couldn't tell if she actually processed his words or if she was just shocked by his sudden defiance. Silence filled the room. After a long while, Eleanor still didn't speak, but tears streamed down her face like broken pearls. Ultimately, Richard sighed and softened.
But he only apologized for yelling at her. When it came to child-rearing, Richard stood his ground. My glowing health was his ultimate proof. Suddenly, Clara began to twitch and convulse on her crib. The tense atmosphere shattered as my parents rushed both of us to the hospital. In my past life, Clara and I had been hospitalized at the same time. The doctor had diagnosed me with severe malnutrition and Clara with food poisoning from spoiled breast milk. This life was no different. Once the test results came out, the pediatrician looked at Eleanor with sheer disgust. "The children are too young to know any better, but are you adults brainless too?" "How could you feed a baby spoiled breast milk?" Confronted with the diagnosis, Eleanor's immediate reaction was denial. "That's impossible!" "Your hospital must have misdiagnosed her!" Ignoring the doctor’s warnings, she grabbed Clara and ran to every single hospital in the city to get second opinions. The results were all identical. And because of her stubbornness, Clara's treatment was severely delayed. By the time Clara was admitted to the ICU, Eleanor collapsed again. She sat on the hallway floor of the hospital, shrieking and deflecting blame. "This is all your fault, Richard! You never come home! You don’t care if we live or die! Now Clara is in the ICU! Are you happy now?" Richard, who was genuinely worried about Clara, looked at her in utter disbelief. "Eleanor, I know you’re anxious about Clara, but she is my daughter too! I am just as worried as you are!" "How could you say that to me?" More and more passersby began to gather. Eleanor looked hysterical and aggressive, while Richard was calmly holding me in his arms. The crowd’s sympathy naturally leaned toward my father. Realizing people were judging her, Eleanor grew even more agitated.
She marched over, her sharp acrylic nail digging pointing aggressively into my face. "You care about Clara? Really?" "Since the day they were born, all your attention has been on Chloe! You left Clara entirely to me!" "What right do you have to say you care about her?" Seeing me being threatened, and pushed to his limit by Eleanor’s public accusations, Richard threw all decorum out the window. "Enough!" "You claim I favor Chloe? Why don't you tell everyone here why a grown man like me has to bring his baby daughter to his office every single day?" "It’s because of you! Because Chloe was born five ounces heavier, you tried to starve her! You even let your mother stuff her into a washing machine to 'spin the fat off'!" "You would rather let your extra breast milk rot in the fridge than give Chloe a single drop!" "Clara is lying in that ICU right now because you forced her to drink that spoiled, putrid milk!" Richard's voice trembled with raw emotion. The onlookers instantly believed him and began whispering among themselves, casting disgusted looks at Eleanor. Even the attending doctors hadn't realized the cause of Clara's illness was so absurd. Their attitude toward Eleanor shifted instantly to cold disdain. Exposed in public, Eleanor's rage blinded her. "Divorce!" she shrieked. To end the public scene, Richard agreed to keep her quiet. But Eleanor suddenly lunged forward, trying to tear me from his arms. "I gave birth to them! You won't get either of them!" Richard refused to let go. In the struggle, Eleanor’s nails clawed across Richard's face, drawing blood that dripped onto my baby clothes. At that moment, the fake agreement turned into a final decision. The one demanding a divorce now was Richard.
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