I drifted behind Mom and watched her scroll through three years' worth of text messages. There were too many to count.
"Where the hell did you go? If you're not coming back, then don't ever come back!"
"You pushed your sister in front of a truck, and the second I called you out, you ran off! You're absolutely impossible!"
"I must have the worst luck in the world to have a daughter like you! You might as well just drop dead!"
But every now and then, scattered between them in the small hours of the morning, there'd be two quiet lines:
"…I dreamed you died. Woke up in a cold sweat."
"You really won't come home? Not even once?"
I cried so hard I couldn't stop. Mom, do you know? I can't come back anymore.
Do you know that the night you helped my sister prep those ingredients…
The knife you brought down on that black bag wasn't cutting through ostrich meat.
You helped her do it with your own hands. I'm in the mountains, in the water, in the stom…
I can never come back!
Just as Mom was about to hit send, the live comments started flooding in:
"Oh please! What stunt is Drama Queen pulling now? Teaming up with a murderer to smear our Carina and her mom!"
"Don't worry, ma'am! It's all just another one of Drama Queen's acts! Our Carina is a ray of sunshine. She'd never hire someone to kill!"
"That woman has never said an honest word in her life! Did you already forget how she pushed Carina in front of that truck?!"
I didn't!
That time, Carina said she wanted to make peace. She promised she'd stop setting me up.
But as we walked along the road, she grabbed my hand and suddenly lunged toward an oncoming truck.
I held on for dear life and pulled her back. Once she was safe, she looked up at me, eyes brimming with tears:
"Do you really want me dead, sis? Then I don't want to live anymore!"
At that exact moment, twelve close-up cameras captured her tear-streaked face in perfect precision.
Mom thought about it for two seconds, then slowly deleted the four words from the text box.
She typed something new instead:
"Still pulling dirty tricks on Carina! Why didn't you actually go and die!"
Compared to the possibility that Carina had hired a hitman, Mom found it easier to believe I'd paid someone to fake my death and frame her.
I stood right in front of Mom, shaking my head as hard as I could.
Mom, I'm really dead. I really wasn't scheming against her.
Mom, don't you remember? You peeled the flesh from my bones with your own hands. It hurt so much…
Mom, could you hold me just one more time, like you did when I was little…
We were in the same room. But Mom couldn't hear me.
Just like the past decade and more under the same roof, when she could never hear me either.
Mom looked up again. Something harder had settled into her eyes.
"That ungrateful daughter of mine loves her luxuries. She lives in top-tier penthouses with security that would never let the likes of you past the gate."
"Now tell me. This 120th victim. Did you make it up or not?"
Bradley reached into his jacket for something, grinning as he fished it out:
"Loves her luxuries? That's hilarious. Top-tier penthouses? When I found her, she couldn't even afford a meal!"
"I told her to get on her knees and I'd give her a case of instant noodles. She looked up at me with those desperate eyes and just knelt right down, like a little lapdog. One clean shot to the head!"
"That's when I realized she didn't have a single thing of value on her. Nothing at all, except this."
Bradley held up a gold bracelet.
"Even broke as she was, she still wouldn't sell it. Tch."
The moment Mom saw the bracelet, her nails dug into the armrest of her chair. A vein pulsed at her temple.
"Where did you get that!"
It was the birthday gift she'd given me. Or more accurately, it wasn't meant for me at all. It was meant for Carina.
Carina thought the bracelet looked dated, so Mom tossed it to me as an afterthought.
It was the only gift I'd ever received. In all those years, the only one.
When I left, I took nothing with me. Nothing except that bracelet.
Mom froze for a split second, and something flickered in her eyes. Whether it was guilt or regret, I couldn't tell.
