Chapter 4

I spent the entire afternoon crying. Crying over my mother's callousness, my own misery, and the crumbling disaster of our family.

Eventually, I convinced myself that I had to tell her.

It was shocking news, something I had discovered entirely by accident.

I naively thought that if I warned her, she would finally realize that in this house, I was the only one who genuinely cared about her.

Maybe then, she would love me just a little bit.

That pathetic fantasy was the only thing keeping me afloat.

I waited from noon until sunset. The front door finally clicked open. Leo ran in carrying an expensive shoe box, grinning from ear to ear.

I stood up, my eyes red and my face puffy.

Before I could get a single word out, Mom raised her phone, snapped a flash photo of my face, and immediately began furiously typing away on her screen.

Mom was addicted to social media. Her feed was packed with photos of her husband, her darling son, and carefully filtered selfies showing off her “blessed life.”

There was only ever one post about me.

A side-by-side photo with the caption: “Guess who’s the mom and who’s the daughter?”

On the left was me during finals week, exhausted and covered in stress breakouts. On the right was her, caked in stage makeup and heavy filters.

Creepy middle-aged men had flooded the comments praising her youthful looks, and she had eagerly liked and replied to every single one.

When I had begged her to take it down back then, she had sneered, “You’re my daughter. I can post whatever I want.”

A sickening sense of dread crept over me. I stepped closer to peek at her screen.

Right there on Instagram was my butchered, uneven buzz cut, my swollen, blotchy face, and my deadened eyes. No filter. Raw, humiliating, and grotesque.

“Mom! Why are you doing this again?!” I cried out in horror.

Mom chuckled behind her hand. “I’m your mother. What’s the big deal about posting a few pictures?”

My memory was sharp. I caught the caption in a single glance:

“I’m starting to hate my oldest daughter more and more. She’s plain as dirt, yet spends all day dressing like a tramp. Tell her to get a haircut and she throws a tantrum. Not like my son—always happy and grateful. Looking at him is the only thing that brings me joy.”

I staggered back, covering my mouth.

It wasn't the worst thing she had ever done to me. But it was the final straw.

The very last shred of hope I had held for her vanished into dust.