Chapter 2

Later, my dad called me, and I briefly laid out the situation.

My dad sighed. "Don't worry. I promised I'd support you, and I will. Chloe, take good care of yourself once you get to California. If you need anything, call me right away. I've saved some money for you over the years."

"Thank you, Dad," I whispered.

My dad separated from my mother when I was ten because she refused to grant him a divorce.

He had been resolute, though, because he had had enough of her suffocating control. He preferred to relocate to another city and start over from scratch rather than spend another day living under the same roof with her.

After my dad left, my mother doubled down on her focus on me.

At first, I didn't realize how sick her need for control was. I even spent years blaming myself, believing that my mother suffered so much pain and hardship all because of me.

Only later did I understand: she simply viewed me as an extension of herself. Or rather, I was her property.

She felt entitled to decide everything for me—my preferences, my habits, my entire life.

Like being forced to learn ballet, just because she had failed to become a dance instructor.

I hated it, had no talent for it, and could never dance well. Whenever I struggled, she would accuse me, saying the family's hard-earned money was being wasted on me, that I had no drive, that I was spitting on her devotion.

Yet I had told her ten thousand times that I didn't want to dance. She could have saved that money all along.

Or like when I ranked second in an exam, she would berate me for being useless. She would call me stupid and clumsy, sneering that after spending so many hours tutoring me, I still managed to make mistakes. She never once considered that my crushing anxiety stemmed entirely from her suffocating expectations.

Yet when I finally scored a perfect grade, she never praised my hard work. She would only boast to others about how obedient I was, bragging that it was all thanks to her superior parenting—that I only succeeded because I listened to her.

I was her trophy, but I was also her stain.

She refused to let me have any flaws, yet she would never grant me any personal credit either.

Soon, relatives began blowing up my phone with calls, aggressively accusing me of being heartless, saying my mother had fallen severely ill from anger and had been rushed to the emergency room.

My uncle, Mark, called to demand that I get to the hospital immediately, threatening that if I didn't show up, he would report my lack of character to my college administrators.

Backed into a corner, I had no choice but to go visit her.

In the hospital room, Uncle Mark glared at me with cold fury. "Chloe, I never imagined you could be so ungrateful! Your father abandoned you as a child to live his merry life in another city. Your mother handled everything alone, cooking, cleaning, staying up night after night to tutor you. Is this how you repay her? Have you no conscience?"

"I never asked her to do any of that," I said flatly.

My uncle stared at me in disbelief. "What did you just say?!"

I repeated, "I said, I never asked her to do any of that!"

I had rejected her suffocating sacrifices countless times. It was too heavy. I was suffocating under the weight of it!