Chapter 18 - My Mother’s Breakdown
The next day, my mother showed up at my apartment.
She looked nothing like the proud, put-together woman I grew up with. Her hair was messy, her eyes were swollen, and she was wearing clothes that looked like she had slept in them.
When I opened the door, she immediately started crying.
“Mia, please,” she begged. “You have to help us. The police are saying we might go to jail. Your father is falling apart. This family is going to be destroyed because of you!”
I stood in the doorway, not letting her inside.
“No,” I said calmly. “This family is being destroyed because of what you and Dad did. Not because of me.”
She wiped her eyes and tried a different approach.
“We’re still your parents,” she said. “Doesn’t that mean anything to you? We raised you. We fed you. We gave you a roof over your head.”
I looked at her for a long moment.
“You gave me a roof,” I said. “But you also stole my future. You made me believe I was a failure. You let Dad slap me in front of hundreds of people. And now you want me to feel sorry for you?”
My mother’s face twisted with anger.
“You’re selfish,” she spat. “You always were. Even as a child, you only thought about yourself.”
I felt something inside me go very still.
Then I said the words I had been holding in for years:
“No, Mom. I was never selfish. I was just never enough for you. Because I wasn’t Ethan.”
She opened her mouth, but no words came out.
I stepped back and closed the door.
I could hear her crying on the other side, but I didn’t open it again.
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For the first time in my life, I chose myself over her pain.
And it felt like freedom.
