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My world shattered when Liam, the boy I' d loved my entire life, brought home a vapid social media influencer as his girlfriend. His parents, who always treated me like a daughter, saw my heartbreak and offered to adopt me, to cut the cord of hope that was strangling me. I agreed to be adopted, planning to start a new life in London. But Liam, convinced I was just playing hard to get, staged a humiliating public proposal to his new girlfriend, Brittany, specifically to get a reaction out of me. At the party, he flaunted Brittany, showered her with affection, and even tried to provoke me by giving her the bouquet meant for me. Instead of crumbling, I clapped, then calmly announced to everyone that I was about to become Liam's sister. His fury was immediate. He forced me into his car, subjected me to a degrading display of intimacy with Brittany, and then abandoned me on a deserted road. Just hours later, Liam was severely injured in a car crash, ironically while protecting Brittany, and his parents asked me to stay with him at the hospital. When I found out he had been fed doctored chat logs, twisting my words to paint me as cold and manipulative, I realized his cruel game was all based on a lie. He believed it without question, destroying our 20 years of trust. He then tried to violently force me to marry him, resulting in another car crash that left him with severe, irreversible brain damage, forever trapping him in the mind of a child. But out of that darkness, I found light. In London, I met Ethan, a kind and sincere architect. We fell in love, built a life, and shared a beautiful, uncomplicated future that was more real than any dream Liam had ever promised.