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My Name is Mine to Decide
Novelix
Completed
Ivy Sterling has spent twenty-two years as a foster daughter in the Sterling family, constantly reminded she could be cast out. When the biological daughter Chloe returns, Ivy is forced to surrender her competition spot, designs, and room. But a DNA test reveals Ivy is the Sterlings' true daughter. She says nothing, quietly planning her escape. When Chloe steals her work and frames her for plagiarism, Ivy sets a clever trap. With the truth exposed at the homecoming banquet, Ivy reclaims her identity, her designs, and her freedom—but refuses to let the Sterlings decide who she is.
Chapters (3)
第1章
“A foster daughter should know her place. Everything the Sterlings gave you can be taken back.”
I’d heard those words for twenty-two years.
Ever since I was little, I’d known I wasn’t the Sterlings’ biological daughter. So I worked myself to the bone learning etiquette and design, doing everything I could to become the polished, presentable daughter they could proudly show off.
But they never cared about me. They only cared about how much value I could bring the family.
Then the Sterlings’ biological daughter, who had been missing for twenty-two years, suddenly came home.
On the day I was supposed to leave, the results of a second DNA test came back.
Against all expectations, I was their daughter.
I didn’t tell anyone.
I simply marked the date on my calendar and decided that once I left, I’d change my name and never come back.
For the next few days, I locked myself in my room and quietly packed everything that actually belonged to me.
Then one day, a commotion erupted downstairs.
...
My mother, Eleanor, had her arm around the girl who had just come home. She pushed an agreement across the table toward me.
“Give Chloe your competition spot and your designs.”
“Then get out of this house.”
I stared at the agreement in silence.
Eleanor frowned. “Did you not understand me?”
“I understood.”
I looked up.
“I’m not signing it.”
Chloe leaned against her, her eyes instantly turning red.
“Mom, it’s normal that Ivy doesn’t want to give it up. She worked so hard for that spot. I just got back. I shouldn’t be fighting her for it.”
She claimed she didn’t want to fight me, but her fingers tightened around Eleanor’s sleeve.
Sure enough, Eleanor’s expression softened.
“What do you mean, fighting? The Sterling family funded the academy in exchange for that opportunity. Of course it should go to a Sterling daughter.”
“I ranked first in the last professional assessment,” I said calmly.
“Without the Sterling family’s training, you wouldn’t even be qualified to compete!”
I froze.
Until yesterday, my grades might not have made the whole family proud, but at least my father’s expression would soften when he saw them. My brothers would even tell me to “keep it up.”
Now Chloe was back, and overnight, I had become a worthless fake heiress who had supposedly lived off the Sterlings for free.
My father, Richard, pushed a bank card toward me.
“There’s five million dollars on this card, plus an apartment on the West Side. Sign the agreement, and you can still leave with some dignity.”
My oldest brother, Grant, opened another document.
“If you refuse, the Sterling family has the right to recover twenty-two years of expenses spent raising you. Ivy, I suggest you think carefully.”
My second brother, Julian, glanced at a message that had just appeared on his phone.
“The academy has already agreed to reconsider the recommendation. Whether you sign or not, the result will be the same.”
My third brother, Theo, was busy with his camera, smiling at Chloe’s picture on the screen.
When I shifted slightly, he snapped impatiently, “Move. You’re blocking my shot. I’m taking pictures of Chloe.”
For the first time in twenty-two years, I learned that a family could erase a person in a single night.
I removed my jewelry piece by piece and placed it on the table.
Eleanor’s face grew colder.
“Who exactly are you throwing this tantrum for?”
“I’m not throwing a tantrum. I’m giving your things back.”
The room went still.
Chloe suddenly spoke in a soft voice.
“Then... Ivy’s assessment project, the ‘Rebirth’ collection, used the family studio and materials too, right? Shouldn’t she give that back as well?”
She paused.
“I just don’t want there to be any confusion later.”
I looked at her.
She hadn’t even been home for a full day, yet she already knew the name of my project.
“The material costs can be calculated. The designs are mine. I created them.”
Richard slammed his glass onto the table.
“You ate the Sterlings’ food, lived under the Sterlings’ roof, and drew those designs in this house. Of course they belong to the Sterling family!”
I picked up the agreement and tore it in half right in front of them.
The scraps fluttered down at Chloe’s feet, and the fragile expression on her face stiffened for a split second.
“Ivy!”
Eleanor shot to her feet.
“Without this family, what do you think you are?”
“Maybe nothing.”
I turned toward the stairs.
“But that’s still better than being something you can give away whenever you feel like it.”
Behind me, Chloe called quietly, “Ivy.”
She followed me to the staircase and lowered her voice until only I could hear.
“You really think a few sketches are enough to go against the Sterling family?”
I stopped and looked back.
The tears in her eyes were gone.
All that remained was barely concealed triumph.
“A foster daughter should know her place. You took my family for twenty-two years. Giving it back to me now is only fair, isn’t it?”
I didn’t answer.
I went upstairs and reached for my bedroom door.
The fingerprint lock flashed red.
Access denied.
The housekeeper opened the door from inside, carrying an armful of my clothes.
“Mrs. Sterling said this south-facing room is being returned to Miss Chloe. Your belongings have already been packed.”
My suitcase stood alone in the hallway.
They hadn’t even bothered to zip it shut.
My phone chimed.
“Ivy, the review of the old case has entered its final stage. The results are expected to be released in twenty-nine days.”
I stared at the message for a long time.
Then I crossed the first day off my calendar.
For years, I had tried my hardest to repay the Sterlings for raising me. I’d played the role of the obedient, polished Sterling daughter perfectly.
Now their biological daughter was home.
It was time for me to leave.
第2章
The next morning, I arrived at Halloway Design Academy to find a crowd gathered around the bulletin board.
My name had already disappeared from the top of the recommendation list.
In its place was Chloe Sterling.
I took a picture and went straight to the office.
My advisor sighed the moment he saw me.
“Ivy, this is an unusual situation. Chloe just reunited with her biological parents. The academy wants to give her an opportunity.”
“Has she even completed enrollment?”
He hesitated.
“The paperwork is being processed.”
“Did she take the professional assessment?”
He adjusted his glasses.
“Well... overall ability can’t be judged by a single exam.”
I placed my transcript in front of him.
“Then hold a blind review. Have every candidate resubmit their work and score everyone by the same standards.”
His expression darkened.
“Ivy, this is the academy’s decision. I suggest you stop letting your personal feelings interfere.”
“So the academy gets to ignore fairness because it made the decision?”
Whispers sounded outside the office.
Suddenly, Chloe pushed the door open and grabbed my hand in front of everyone.
“Ivy, I didn’t know they were going to replace your name. If it bothers you that much, I can give the spot back.”
Her voice trembled.
Her tears arrived right on cue.
People outside immediately started defending her.
“The Sterling family secured that opportunity in the first place.”
“She took Chloe’s place for twenty-two years. Can’t she give up one thing?”
I pulled my hand free.
“The spot should belong to whoever earned the highest score. The Sterling family doesn’t get to decide that.”
I looked straight at Chloe.
“And neither do you.”
Her eyes widened.
Julian happened to be coming down the hallway.
He immediately stepped in front of Chloe.
“Enough.”
He didn’t ask what had happened.
He simply gave me an order.
“Chloe has a solid foundation. She just never received formal training. Giving her this competition spot compensates her for the opportunities she lost all these years.”
“If you want to compensate her, use something that belongs to you.”
I pointed at the list.
“Don’t compensate her with something I earned.”
Julian’s gaze turned cold.
“The academy works with the Sterling family. I have the right to recommend someone more suitable. You’ve also been emotionally unstable lately. You’re not fit to represent the academy.”
“How exactly am I emotionally unstable?”
“Look at yourself!”
Just like that, one sentence was enough to make me the problem.
I looked at my advisor behind the desk.
“So the recommendation isn’t based on assessment scores anymore. It’s based on how much influence the Sterling family has. Is that it?”
He avoided my eyes and began organizing the papers on his desk.
Julian’s voice hardened.
“Ivy, don’t make this uglier than it needs to be.”
“You think I’m the one making it ugly?”
I picked up my transcript and turned away.
Behind me, Julian added coldly, “Since you refuse to accept the academy’s decision, you won’t need access to the academy studio for the time being.”
Thirty minutes later, my studio access was suspended.
The materials from my locker were stuffed into cardboard boxes and dumped outside.
Students passing by stared.
Chloe stood behind the glass doors.
“Without the Sterling family and without the academy, what do you have left to compete with me?”
I bent down and picked up the box.
The sharp edge of the cardboard sliced the skin on my arm.
It hurt.
I kept walking.
Once I left the building, I pulled out my phone and found the New Vanguard Open Design Competition, which accepted entries from the public.
No academy recommendation was required.
No family background checks either.
There was only one sentence on the application page.
“Let the work tell us who you are.”
I wiped the blood from the back of my hand and hit submit.
Chloe had asked what I had left to compete with her.
My work.
Obviously.
第3章
The theme of the open competition was “Belonging.”
I drew for an entire week.
Rejected drafts piled across the cutting table, but I still couldn’t find the heart of the collection.
The Sterling family cut off my allowance, and the brand that had promised me part-time work suddenly backed out.
So I attended classes during the day, revised designs for a clothing store at night, then returned to the sewing room after midnight to keep working.
Through the worst of it, the family seamstress, Marta, always left a light on for me.
One evening, she was widening the right armhole of a garment for a client.
The woman had injured her shoulder and couldn’t raise her arm very high. Regular ready-to-wear clothes were always uncomfortable for her.
“Life is already hard enough,” Marta said. “People shouldn’t have to force their bodies to accommodate their clothes too.”
She pulled an old measurement notebook from a cabinet.
It contained notes on all kinds of bodies.
One person had uneven shoulders. Another woman’s waist and abdomen had changed after childbirth. Someone else could barely raise her right arm because of an injury.
Beside one entry, Marta had written a sentence.
“It’s not the body that’s wrong. It’s the garment.”
I stared at those words.
And suddenly, I knew what I needed to design.
Belonging wasn’t about forcing everyone into the same standard.
It meant creating something that could accommodate a person exactly as they were.
I named the collection “Second Skin.”
Marta helped me refine the patterns and construction techniques while I handled the designs.
I also drafted a collaboration agreement.
Any future profits would be divided according to our actual contributions, and both our names would appear on the work.
Marta stared at it for a long time.
“I’m just a seamstress. You really want my name on it?”
“Without you, my drawings would always be nothing more than drawings.”
Once the full proposal took shape, I noticed a login record on my computer from the middle of the night.
The sketches beside my desk had also been rearranged.
The sewing room lock hadn’t been damaged.
There weren’t many people who could freely enter this place.
I said nothing.
I moved the real designs to an encrypted drive and saved the entire revision history.
Then I deliberately left a fake version on my desktop.
The concept, colors, and renderings were complete enough to look convincing.
Only the construction was wrong.
You couldn’t see the flaws from the drawings.
But once the garment was made, raising an arm would distort it, turning would pull the waistline out of place, and bending forward would inevitably split the back seam.
That night, I received another unauthorized-login alert.
Ten minutes later, the connection ended.
By the time I reached the sewing room, the folder on my desktop was empty.
The printed construction drawings were gone too.
Whoever did it had erased the access history.
What they didn’t know was that the system also kept records of external devices.
Marta asked if I wanted to call the police.
I shook my head.
“Not yet. We don’t have enough evidence.”
Three days later, Chloe publicly revealed her competition entry.
She called it “Homecoming.”
In the promotional video, she stood in the Sterling family garden wearing a white dress and told the story of how she had spent twenty-two years separated from her family before finally returning to her biological parents.
Behind her were the designs.
From the color palette to the construction, they were identical to my fake drafts.
She had submitted them six hours before I did.
That afternoon, a post appeared on the academy forum accusing me of being jealous of the biological daughter and stealing Chloe’s ideas.
It included fragments of my sketches.
The timestamps had been cropped out, and the sequence had been rearranged.
At first glance, it genuinely looked as if I had copied her.
I saved every page.
I didn’t explain anything.
She hadn’t just stolen a fake design.
She had already prepared witnesses and a fake timeline for herself.
What she didn’t know was that the beautiful-looking “Homecoming” had a problem buried inside it.
