Denise's eyes were glossed with tears as she stared at them.
Gwen froze for a moment, then immediately glanced at Luna. "She…"
Luna rubbed her brow in exasperation. "I thought she was sleeping, so I removed the towel from her mouth so she wouldn't choke."
Neither of them had expected Denise to wake up in the middle of their conversation.
"I heard everything." Denise sighed when she noticed Luna's confusion and said solemnly, "I never…thought things would turn out this way."
Denise had always been a good actress.
Ever since she was a child, she had to learn ways of feigning obedience to steer attention away from her brother, so she picked up the skill of pretending to fall asleep whenever the adults wanted her to. Not only that, but she was even able to wake up 'on demand' to appease the adults.
Even though the adults gradually saw through her as she grew older, she could still fool unsuspecting people, including Luna and Gwen.
She had not been asleep this whole time at all. Instead, she had overheard everything Steven said about her, including Steven and Gwen's argument.
It turned out that Luna and Gwen had not been lying after all.
The reason Steven had woken up from his coma…was because he had stolen someone else's body. Gwen had not intruded into Kate and Steven's relationship at all. On the contrary, Kate had been the outsider all along.
Denise had already been shocked to learn all this, but she never thought that she would overhear her own parents choosing to abandon her.
After living with the Hughes family for more than two decades, she was more than familiar with their voices and could recognize in an instant that the recording was real.
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