My mother had been drugged by a factory owner when she was young. That was how she got pregnant with me. She carried the label of homewrecker for years, a lie branded onto her by people who never cared to learn the truth. None of it stopped her from pouring every last drop of herself into loving me.
When money ran out, she remarried so we could survive. She had no way of knowing that her new stepson was a monster wearing a human face. The moment she left the house, he forced himself on me.
I had told Curtis all of this. Every detail. When we first started dating, I laid myself bare because I believed that real love meant no secrets. I told him how much I despised the very concept of being the other woman, and why.
I never imagined that the honesty I'd offered out of love would become a blade. A boomerang sharpened with my own confessions, hurled back to bury itself in my chest.
They weren't just destroying me. They were dragging my dead mother through the mud.
Something inside me snapped. The pain didn't disappear. It transformed. Every shred of heartbreak hardened into white-hot fury.
I walked up to Curtis and slapped him across the face with everything I had.