The Miracle of You

When Camille arrived home after meeting with Michael, she was filled with an inner glow that she had never felt before. It was as if she’d been given hope in life again. It sounded exaggerated, but Michael was truly the breath of fresh air that she had needed for a long time now.

She went straight towards the guest room and stopped before the mirror, staring at her reflection.

At that moment, Michael’s words came back to her.

‘You’re still so beautiful,’ he had told her in German.

Who knew that an unexpected shared language between them would cause a fluttering in her stomach?

‘To think that he complimented me even when I look like this…’ Camille thought to herself wryly as she approached the mirror. ‘Even I can’t recognize myself from my high school appearance anymore.’

It had been fourteen years since she left this city. Fourteen years since she behaved as the good eldest daughter of the van Gowen family and prepared to inherit the family business along with her two brothers.

‘I would’ve stayed with them longer if I didn’t know the truth,’ Camille thought somberly.

It all started when she was seventeen years old, about six months before her high school graduation.

–

“When are you going to tell her the truth?”

“When the time is right.”

“She’ll be turning eighteen in a few months, Luther. Don’t you think she has the right to know?”

“I will tell her, Emilia. It’s not like I’m going to keep this a secret forever.”

“I know, but… the more time passes, the more my guilt grows. We should’ve told her a long time ago. No, we should’ve told her when she was little. That way, things would be easier to-”

“Emilia, she was just a child. I couldn’t do that to her.”

Camille – rather, Hailey at that time – accidentally overheard this conversation between her father and mother. Initially, she had meant to knock on their bedroom door to ask them to sign a permission slip for their upcoming school trip.

However, just before Hailey could knock, their argument slipped through the cracks of the door, and she inadvertently heard most of their words.

It was clear at that point that they were talking about her.

“Das meinst du nicht im Ernst!”

“Ich bin sehr besorgt darüber!”

Hailey quickly hid in the corner just in case, feeling her breath catch in her throat. Their voices were so close, like they were in the middle of leaving but got caught up in the heated discussion.

In all her life, she had never witnessed her parents arguing to this extent. They often expressed how much they loved each other.

To think that they would resort to arguing in German… It only meant that the conversation was taking a fierce turn. There was no doubt that the issue was serious enough to warrant a dispute like this.

And Hailey knew that she needed to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible. Especially after hearing them mention her name.

But she couldn’t risk standing behind their bedroom door again, or they might catch her in the act.

‘There’s something they’re refusing to tell me about,’ Hailey thought as she went to Paul’s room.

If there was someone in the family whom she could trust and rely on the most, it was Paul. Even though she was the eldest and Paul was the youngest, he was reliable. Benjamin was also trustworthy sometimes, but the problem was that he was a terrible liar.

So Paul was Hailey’s first choice.

“Who is it?” Paul asked after Hailey knocked on his door three times.

“It’s me,” she said simply.

A few seconds later, footsteps were heard, and then Paul opened the door.

Hailey stood there, gazing at him with interest. It had always intrigued her how different she looked from her brothers. Paul was tall for his age, but fell about an inch or two compared to her height. He was handsome enough with blond hair, blue eyes, and refined, sculpted features. Benjamin, on the other hand, looked relatively the same, only that his hair was a deep shade of brown.

Meanwhile, Hailey’s appearance was plain when compared to the two. Her hair was a simple black, and her eyes were olive-green. Their skin tones were slightly tanned, while hers was fair, almost bordering on pale.

“What brings you here, meine Schwester?” Paul asked with a smile. He always seemed pleasantly surprised to see her, something that never failed to warm Hailey’s heart.

“Can we speak in English instead, mein Bruder?” Hailey said teasingly. “Can I come in?”

“Of course,” Paul said, stepping aside to give Hailey space.

Even though Hailey entered this room several times already, she was always surprised to see the neatness of Paul’s bedroom. Maybe she got too used to the chaos that was Ben’s room, because that boy was like a disaster when it came to his things. How could those two look similar yet act so differently at the same time?

“You should give Ben cleaning lessons when you visit his room. He needs it badly,” Hailey remarked as she took a seat on Paul’s bed.

“Since when does he listen to me? He always makes fun of me just because he’s older,” Paul muttered, rolling his eyes good-naturedly.

Hailey chuckled. “Yet you still indulge him in his mischief most of the time. Mama and Papa are getting tired of your pranks, you know. You two should either straighten yourselves out or think of better pranks that’ll make them laugh instead of getting mad all the time.”

“Mami and Papi are no fun nowadays. They get angry so easily,” Paul complained.

“That’s because you two are a handful. You can’t really blame them.”

“Fine, fine.”

Hailey fell silent for a moment. This turn in the conversation was perfect. It was a good opportunity to bring up their parents’ argument earlier.

Paul would probably know what it was about. After all, he was always honest with her.

Plus, he and Benjamin were known to be the snoops around the house. They knew a lot of things.

“Paul…” Hailey began hesitantly. “I want to ask you something. And if possible, I want you to answer me honestly, okay?”

Paul’s eyes widened slightly. It seemed that he didn’t expect a serious discussion tonight.

After a while, he nodded and closed the notebook he was writing on. He turned his chair around from his desk to face her fully.

“What is it?” he asked softly.

Hailey took a deep breath before finally going for it. “So, I heard Mama and Papa arguing just now,” she said. “They were talking about me, that was clear enough. But they mentioned something about telling me the truth, that they felt guilty about hiding it from me for so long.”

Hailey stared straight into Paul’s startled eyes and instantly knew.

“You know what they were talking about, don’t you?” she said slowly. “Tell me what you know, Paul.”

“Hailey, I…” Paul seemed to be having difficulty swallowing. “I don’t know if I should tell you this. I wanted Mom and Dad to be the ones to say it to you. I don’t think…”

His voice eventually trailed off, a clear hesitance showing in his expression.

Hailey stared at him for a long moment before the answer popped into her head.

It was so simple. So obvious. Yet despite her good grades and her intuitive mind, she took this long to realize it.

How embarrassing… and how shocking.

Yet it made sense.

Hailey took a long, deep breath, trying to calm her racing heart.

“…I’m adopted, aren’t I?”