Chapter 3

Damon lowered his eyes, apologizing softly:"Mom, it's all my fault."

"If I hadn't let Anya go abroad then, you wouldn't be so sad."

Mom lovingly placed the largest rib onto his plate.

"This has nothing to do with you."

"Even if Anya hadn't left, I would have cut ties with her anyway!"

Her eyes blazed with a fire that scorched my very soul.

As they shared their cozy meal, I gradually understood.

This wedding was Mom's idea, all to secure funding from the Blackwood Corporation, so the orphanage children could afford to study abroad.

Mom even admitted herself, she couldn't bear to part with the children, but felt only annoyance towards me.

"I was already too far along when I was pregnant with her, and I couldn't abandon her, but I absolutely wouldn't let the children suffer."

"I was an orphan myself, I know how hard it is. Everything she had, I'll give to the children, doubled!"

When Damon proposed to me, Mom not only didn't worry about my well-being, but urged me to accept.

In her eyes, marriage was a win-win: she could get rid of me and secure funding.

After hearing their words, my soul felt like it was being ripped in two.

My eyes burned with unshed tears, tears of blood.

I couldn't help but remember a thousand nights of my childhood.

Remembering Mom, whom I sometimes didn't see for a month.

The day I got into a prestigious high school, Mom bought me a cake to celebrate.

But Sam, one of the younger orphans, just stared at it, drooling, and Mom took the cake back to the orphanage.

I didn't get a single bite, bursting into tears, demanding to know why.

But she always said:"Anya, what are you getting angry about?"

"They're your younger siblings, can't they even have a bite?"

Mom grabbed my arm and locked me in the chest freezer, telling me to calm down.

I stayed there until my homeroom teacher found me the next day and rushed me to the hospital.

Outside the emergency room, my guidance counselor called her dozens of times, but Mom never came.

It turned out, Mom truly didn't love me.

I finally understood why she didn't care about my life or death.

Why she didn't even recognize my corpse.

It was because she didn't care! She didn't remember!

I clutched my chest, almost suffocating.

Just then, the police called again.

Mom's face paled drastically after she answered.