Chapter 5

"Ms. Smith, after a thorough verification of our system, there are no issues with your or Liam Wales's exam papers or final scores. If you still disagree with the results, you can file a lawsuit directly through the legal process."

The call ended coldly.

Dead silence filled the living room.

Margaret, who had been furious just seconds ago, suddenly looked at me with pity in her eyes.

She sighed heavily, her voice exhausted and helpless. "I didn't want to do this, Clara. But your mental state is getting worse and worse. You've even started attacking your own family."

My body went rigid. I stared at her in disbelief. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Margaret turned toward the bookshelf, pulled a yellowed file envelope from a drawer, and tossed it onto the coffee table. The envelope fell open, revealing letterhead from California's most authoritative mental health center.

"See for yourself." Her eyes were red, her voice choked with emotion.

It was a diagnosis for Severe Anxiety Disorder and Delusional Stress Disorder. And my name was printed right there on it.

"Your grades were always terrible. You couldn't even get into a regular college." Margaret dabbed at her eyes with a tissue, her tone dripping with fake concern. "Ever since you met Ethan and watched him go to law school, your inferiority complex drove you completely crazy. You started having serious hallucinations. You became convinced that you were the top student who graduated with straight A's from Harvard Law."

A loud buzzing exploded in my skull, like someone had smashed a hammer directly into my forehead.

"You're lying! You're full of shit!" I screamed, pointing at Ethan and Sophie. "My acceptance letter! my diploma! Those were real! They're the deadbeats, they stole my grades!"

"Enough, Clara! Haven't you embarrassed yourself enough?!"

Ethan stormed over and grabbed my shoulders. "That so-called Harvard diploma of yours? Mom paid some guy online like fifty bucks to make it as a fake! Do you have any idea how scary you get when you have an episode? You try to jump out windows, you try to slit your wrists! To keep you stable, to get you treatment, we've all been tiptoeing around you, playing along with your little delusion!"

"No way... that can't be right..." I clutched my throbbing head, the whole world spinning around me. "I'm a law student... I memorized thousands of cases... I have all this knowledge in my brain!"

"Yeah? Sure you do." Liam sneered, yanking a basic bar exam practice book from under the coffee table and slamming it into my chest. "Alright then, genius. Translate this basic property law clause right now for me."

I clung to that page like it was my last lifeline, staring hard at the words.

But... what the fuck? Why couldn't I understand any of it?

Wait... was I actually sick?

Watching me completely break down and slump onto the couch, Margaret stepped forward and stroked my head like I was some poor stray dog.

"It's okay, Clara. It's good that you're coming to your senses." She wiped the cold sweat from my face. "Now that you know the truth, let's stop with the bar exam stuff, okay? I pulled some strings and got you a job as a waitress at the café on the corner. Work a steady job from now on. Forget about the bar exam. Don't touch that shit ever again."

I sat there like a puppet with all its strings cut, and nodded numbly.

I gave up. I threw in the towel completely.

From that day on, I worked day in and day out at the café.

Until one morning, half a month later.

Sarah, my coworker on the early shift, burst through the door looking flustered and gave me an apologetic smile. "Sorry Clara, I overslept today! You haven't had breakfast yet, right?"

She pulled a sealed glass jar out of her insulated bag, filled with thick, dark brown liquid.

"Try this! It's pure hot cocoa from my uncle's farm! 100% natural, no artificial additives or anything."

I flinched backward on instinct. Ever since I'd given up on the bar exam, I hadn't touched a single drop of hot cocoa. That stuff was basically my personal trauma at this point.

But Sarah was so enthusiastic about it that I reluctantly took the jar and took a tiny, tentative sip.

Rich, slightly bitter, with that deep natural cocoa bean aroma spreading across my tongue.

I froze. Every drop of blood in my body turned to ice.

"Sarah..." My voice was shaking so bad I could barely get the words out. "Are you sure... this is the purest farm hot cocoa there is?"

"Yeah! Isn't it good? Tastes super clean, right?"

No. It tasted wrong.

The "secret recipe" hot cocoa Margaret made me drink for three years always had this weird, cloyingly sweet, almost bitter aftertaste — like there was medicine in it. She always told me that's what top-tier organic cocoa powder was supposed to taste like.

But turns out real, pure hot cocoa didn't have that weird sugary chemical taste at all.

All the memories came flooding back at once — the random fainting spells in the exam room, the sudden crippling stomach pain, the bedtime drink that was always only for me...

And why the hell couldn't I understand basic bar exam questions anymore? Because years of being drugged had already fried my nerves and wrecked my memory.

My whole body shook violently. Tears poured down my face.

I finally knew what Margaret's bedtime hot cocoa was hiding.