The ache in my chest sharpened into something raw and unbearable, every ounce of fury jammed in my throat until I couldn't force out a single word.
Frank had already stripped himself bare.
The instant he lunged at me, I twisted aside and let him crash into empty air.
I didn't hesitate, not even for a heartbeat. I climbed onto the table and threw myself out the window.
When I hit the ground, my balance pitched sideways.
A sharp crack, then white-hot pain exploded through my ankle. It swelled tight and shiny in seconds.
My scream tore through the night, shattering the quiet.
Neighbors woken by the noise pressed against their windows, pointing down at me, voices buzzing all at once.
"Goodness, it's the Henson girl. She jumped."
"She was fine. Why on earth would she jump?"
"I heard that girl's a real piece of work. Who knows what she's up to, pulling a stunt like this."
My hair hung loose and wild, my back drenched, the picture of disgrace.
Thank God we lived on the second floor.
The hedges below had cushioned the fall, so I wasn't in any danger.
But the pain bored straight through me, pinning me where I lay.
My mother leaned out the window and screamed at me, loud enough to flood the whole building with light.
"Silvia Henson, have you lost your mind, you wretched girl? How did I give birth to such an ungrateful little snake?"
"You've humiliated me beyond words. You'd rather throw yourself off a building than stop running around with trash."
"Give me back the five thousand dollars for my treatment. You're sick, you're heartless. Do you want to leave us with nothing…"
Every cruel word drove into my ears like a nail, freezing me solid where I sat.
The ankle burned, frantic and feverish, the swollen knot throbbing with each pulse of blood.
Yet against the shame and the disgrace crushing my chest, somehow it hardly registered.
The neighbors' stares pinned me down with nowhere to hide.
I forced myself up through the agony, balancing on the ball of one foot, head bowed, limping with everything I had toward the gate.
I didn't dare look back. I didn't dare stop.
One thought filled my head: get out of this place that was choking the life out of me, now.
But I'd barely gone a few steps before the security guard at the entrance blocked my path.
"Silvia Henson, quit being so stubborn. You've sent your mother into a heart attack. Go give that money back."
My fingertips went numb, blood roaring straight up to my skull.
I shouted, past caring how it sounded. "Move. My mother's trying to destroy me. She wants me to have a baby with a man who isn't right in the head."
The two guards exchanged a glance, then looked at me with open contempt.
"Your mother called it. A lie this pathetic, trying to weasel your way out, who's going to buy that?"
"We're not letting you run off to that punk again. Have some pity on your mother. Act like a human being for once."
For years my mother had played the perfect mom for everyone to see. Nobody in the neighborhood didn't know how good she was to me.
In the mornings, she'd stroll through the complex with all kinds of breakfast in hand.
She told anyone who'd listen, "My Silvia's so picky, she has to have something different every morning. I got this from the market five miles out."
In the evenings, she'd carry a basket of premium fruit and plant herself right in the thick of the crowd.
She'd say it to anyone, "I've spoiled my Silvia rotten. She won't touch fruit unless it's top grade. I have to go pick through it at the big supermarket myself to suit her taste."
Over time, every neighbor who'd ever met my mother believed she'd raised me like a princess.
They thought she cooked me a hundred different dishes, bending over backward to please me.
That she poured the bulk of the household money into me.
That she'd made me arrogant and willful.
My mother had played the devoted mother in this neighborhood for over a decade.
No one would ever believe that a mother who held me in the palm of her hand could use the filthiest words to slander me, could stop at nothing to ruin me.
