Part 1The World is a Circus, and I’m the Clown

The world is just a giant, chaotic simulation run by unpaid interns.

And I am the glitch.

My dad is a Wall Street shark. I, however, still struggle with splitting the bill at dinner.

My mom is an Oscar-winning actress. I look like an NPC in the background of her life.

My brother curated his own art exhibition at four years old. At five, I was still eating paste and drooling.

Even our housekeeper, Martha, and the butler, Alfred, are retired special ops or hidden geniuses.

Luckily, they all spoil me rotten.

I had made peace with my mediocrity...

Until one day, a viral "Genius Girl" knocked on our door, demanding I vacate her spot as the real heiress.

Great. The other shoe I’ve been waiting for my whole life has finally dropped.

* * *

I’ve always felt like a glitch in this family’s matrix.

Dad is a financial tycoon. Mom is Hollywood royalty.

Me? Average brain, average face.

They say nature seeks balance.

My brother, Julian, is the result of hoarding all the talent. Art prodigy at four, MIT at fifteen, and a permanent fixture on the "Most Handsome Faces" global list.

I wanted to be jealous. I wanted to be a villain. I wanted to crawl around in the dark like a goblin.

But I chose to make peace with myself.

After all, you can’t win the genetic lottery twice in a row.

I was living my best life, rotting in bed...

Until the internet-famous Genius Girl showed up.

"The nurse in the delivery room confessed! We were switched at birth! I am the real Sterling daughter!"

"You’re so basic! How could you possibly be their daughter?"

"Today, I’m taking back everything that belongs to me!"

Tiffany stormed in alone, but she carried the energy of a SWAT team.

Her confidence was so overwhelming that my family—sorry, me and the other family of three—fell into deep contemplation.

Dad, looking up from his tablet: "Switched?"

Mom, checking her manicure: "How would I know? I was too busy counting my stretch marks. Wasn't the baby handed to Julian?"

Julian, my stoic brother, paused for three seconds before delivering a cold fact:

"I was three years old."

Mom paused, then tried to deflect the blame again.

"But you loved holding the baby! You kept asking if you could share your new toy with your little girlfriend, Avery."

"Avery wasn't my girlfriend."

"But she called me 'Mommy' every time she saw me..."

I sat there, sweating bullets.

Tiffany didn't look too happy either.

Seeing Mom and Julian drift off-topic, I stood up to interrupt. "Dad, Mom, Julian, look at my face. Then look at hers. Don't we look more like a family?"

She pointed at me, slumped on the sofa.

I touched my plain face and nodded in agreement.

Growing up, the compliments Julian received included, but were not limited to: "Dashing," "Stunning," "A carbon copy of his father."

For me? It was always: "She looks... healthy."

Depressing.

"Also, I’ve been a straight-A student my whole life! But her? She’s been dead last since kindergarten. She even bought her college degree!"

Tiffany continued to present her evidence.

I lowered my head in shame.

Since school started, Julian was always the Valedictorian.

I was always the cautionary tale.

My tutor didn't believe in failure. She gave me private lessons until she suffered a stress-induced stroke and ended up in the ICU.

In her delirium, she held my hand, whispering:

"What... do the numbers mean... Avery... what do they mean?"

I felt guilty. So, the night before the next exam, I pulled an all-nighter and memorized the entire math textbook.

The next day, I became a campus legend for filling the entire exam sheet with formulas and getting a score of zero.

Thinking back on this, I looked at my parents and brother with a heavy heart.

"Is it possible... that you guys really are related?"

Mom and Dad fell into deep thought.

Julian looked solemn.

Tiffany was still screaming: "Mom! Dad! Don't you believe me? I've been suffering alone for eighteen years! How can you not believe me?"

Just as the atmosphere reached a boiling point, Martha, who had been standing in the shadows, spoke up:

"Sir, Madam... there is this technology called a DNA test."