Chapter 3: The Comments and the Truth

That night, my dad came home hungry and complained that the food was cold. He flipped the table and smashed the plates at my mom.

I’d tried to make mac and cheese, but it sat too long while we waited. The plates shattered, sharp shards flying everywhere, Mom ducking just in time. The food slopped onto the floor, and the kitchen filled with the sour smell of burnt cheese and spilled beer.

The broken shards cut my mom’s face, leaving her bleeding. She instinctively shielded her head and begged him to stop.

Blood trickled down her cheek, and I fumbled for paper towels, heart pounding. Her voice broke as she pleaded, “Please, just stop, please…”

After a storm of cursing, my dad slammed the door and went back to the bedroom.

The sound echoed through the house—one last threat before silence fell. My mom and I sat in the wreckage, the only light coming from the fridge, humming on and off.

My mom sat trembling on the floor, mumbling that she wanted to go back to being a rich girl—she didn’t want to suffer anymore.

She pulled her knees to her chest, rocking slightly, as if she could somehow shrink away from everything that had happened. Her words were barely a whisper, but I heard every one.

She also said love was all a lie, that she’d been fooled.

The word "love" hung in the air, sounding so bitter it made my stomach twist. I wondered what kind of love could do this to a person—turn her whole life into a nightmare.

I’d heard these words more than once—always my mom’s delirious mutterings after being beaten.

I never knew what to say. I just sat there, holding her hand, hoping somehow that made things a little less lonely.

While I cleaned her wounds, I hated myself for not growing up faster.

I dabbed at her cuts with a washcloth, my hands clumsy but careful. Each time she winced, I felt another stab of guilt.

Otherwise, my mom would be driven out of her mind.

I wished I could just make time speed up, wake up tomorrow as someone big enough to stop him for good.

But I never expected, in the next moment, a flood of comments would suddenly appear before my eyes.

It was like being inside a video game or a Twitch chat—lines of text floating across my vision, impossible to ignore, even as the world around me stayed heartbreakingly real.

[Your mom really is a rich girl, but she was too much of a romantic back then. Your dad tricked her away with just a grilled cheese sandwich. Years of misery have left her mentally unstable—she still dreams of being an heiress.]

[Your grandpa is none other than the richest man in Chicago.]

[Sigh, if you wait another two weeks, your mom’s liver disease will be incurable. That’s the tragic end of a love fool.]

I blinked hard, feeling my head spin. Was I hallucinating? Did all the stress finally push me over the edge?

After the shock came panic.

If this was real—if these messages weren’t just my brain cracking—then I was running out of time. My hands started to shake, adrenaline flooding in.

My mom had indeed once clutched her right side and said it hurt.

I remembered the look on her face—pale, lips pressed together, hiding the pain like she always did. Back then, I thought it was just another bruise.

But my dad just yelled at her for faking, saying, “I kicked your right rib, so why does your left side hurt? Who are you trying to fool?”

His voice was cruel, slicing through her whimpers like a dull knife. He never cared if her pain made sense.

But in biology class, we learned that’s where the liver is.

I remembered the textbook diagram, the teacher tapping on the board. My mom’s pain suddenly made a sick kind of sense.

So, my mom really does have liver disease, and it’s serious.

My chest squeezed tight. Two weeks? That’s all the time we had? I wanted to scream, but all that came out was a broken whisper.

A cold sweat broke out on my back. This was real. This was urgent.

I can’t risk it.

I clenched my fists, looking from my mom to the glowing comments, the stakes suddenly higher than ever.

If what the comments say is true... I can’t lose my mom.

She was all I had. No matter how broken she was, she was my only family.

If the comments are right, then my grandpa is a powerful tycoon. Even if he resents my mom for being stubborn, he wouldn’t just watch her die.

I pictured a skyscraper, a man in a suit with my mom’s eyes—someone who could save us if he only knew we existed.

Looking at my mom groaning in pain, and my dad who could snap at me any second,

The house felt smaller than ever, shadows curling in every corner. My own heart pounded like it was trying to break out of my chest.

I clenched my teeth and made up my mind.

Fortune favors the bold—it’s time to find my real family.