Chapter 9
463words
"Lily wouldn't... she wasn't like that! She couldn't..."
"The video's fake! It has to be fake!"
I looked at her, a cold smile touching my lips.
"You always knew, didn't you?"
"Mom?"
She stared at me, lost. Then, tears streaming, she lunged, grabbing my hair again.
"No! Don't say it!"
I pushed her away coldly and rolled up my sleeve.
My arm was a canvas of overlapping purple and yellow bruises.
Gasps rose. A village woman stepped forward. "Maya... what happened? How did you get these?"
I looked at my mother, who was shrinking back, trembling.
"You should ask her."
For the first couple of years after my stepmother married my dad, she wasgood to me.
At least, I thought so.
After Dad died... she changed.
At home, she'd stuff a towel in my mouth, make me kneel, and whip me, forbidding me to make a sound.
Outside, she played the devoted stepmother, the martyr raising another woman's child.
She threatened me never to tell.
No one knew why Charlie and I were close.
It was because when she beat me, I hid in the foul-smelling cesspit. Charlie, also bullied, found me.
We became secret friends.
My words to Charlie at the village entrance – "I missed you" – were just that, words between friends.
That night at the scene, Charlie, who had witnessed everything, saw Jake about to attack me. He rushed out without hesitation to save me.
As he frantically tried to cover my exposed body, Nathan arrived and misinterpreted it as an assault.
No one understood why I was so sure Charlie wasn't the killer, even though I hadn't seen the attack.
It was because he was my most trusted friend.
I also knew no one would believe me.
People love twisting simple things into something sordid, something that fits their narrative.
Like me and Charlie.
Knowing the truth, the crowd looked at my mother with pure disgust.
She backed away, frantic, trying to explain, but no one listened.
She threw herself at my feet, sobbing.
"Maya, no!"
"I may be your stepmother, but I loved you!"
"Lily did too! She admired you most! She wasn't like they think!"
I pushed her hand away coldly.
"With the evidence right there, you think I'll believe your crocodile tears?"
"Helen Johnson, aren't you tired of playing the loving mother all these years?"
When I learned Lily had planted a whole lawn back home, just to give me a perfect wedding...
I wastouched.
I thought my stepmother and sister had finally accepted me.
When Lily invited me to see the venue, I was thrilled.
But it was all an illusion.
What I longed for... never came.
I didn't need a family like this anymore!
