“She wasn’t supposed to take it that far,” she whispered.
Not denial.
Not shock.
Just… poor execution.
“What did you tell her to do?”
“Help her adjust.”
“To what?”
“To motherhood.”
I stared at her.
“You tried to break her.”
“She’s weak!” my mother snapped. “You’re blinded. She’ll ruin your child!”
I felt something inside me collapse.
“Eliza is not weak,” I said quietly. “She trusted the wrong people.”
Upstairs—
Eliza cried.
Real cries this time.
Not silent.
That decided everything.
“Leave,” I told my mother.
“You’re choosing her over me?”
The sentence that ended everything.
I opened the door.
“Leave.”
She did.
And just like that—
My past walked out of my life.
Chapter 3: The Severed Ties
I found Eliza upstairs, wrapped in my shirt, trembling.
I knelt in front of her.
“I’m sorry.”
She didn’t look at me.
“That scares me,” she whispered. “It sounds like you knew.”
“No,” I said. “But I should have.”
That mattered.
“I tried to tell you once,” she said.
My chest tightened.
“When?”
“You were on your laptop. I said she scared me.”
I remembered.
I hadn’t even looked up.
“She told me you’d think I was crazy,” Eliza continued. “Your mother agreed.”
Gaslighting.
Systematic.
Cruel.
“They made me believe I was the problem.”
Tears fell.