Chapter 3
My mother quickly held him back, fussing about his high blood pressure and telling him not to get so worked up for the sake of his health.
As she said this, she shot me a vicious look and ordered me to kneel.
They still hated me.
Their disgust for me hadn't faded one bit.
Thinking about it, I've been a complete failure in life. I once desperately tried to win my parents' affection, begging them for just a little love, but their hearts and eyes were always full of only Ruth.
They believed my sister was kind and gentle, while I was jealous and petty.
They never loved me.
After I escaped from the hospital, there were countless times I thought about reaching out to them for help. But what I overheard was them wishing I had died in that fire, so I wouldn't continue to disgrace the family by 'stealing' my sister's man.
At that moment, my heart finally broke.
Thankfully, my grandfather had left me a sum of money; otherwise, I wouldn't have had the means to survive.
When the twins were born, I never showed favoritism, terrified they would experience the dynamic I had with Ruth.
And what did I get in return?
They stood by and let me die!
My previous life was a failure from start to finish.
Seeing me standing my ground, unmoving and expressionless in a way that unnerved them, my mother frowned. "How do you still have the face to live? First, you fought with your sister over a man, and now you're stopping your sons from knowing their father? Your sister doesn't even mind them reconnecting with Mr. Howell! What right do you have to stop them?"
Everyone accused me of stealing Ruth's man, but the truth was, she and Steven weren't even in a relationship back then—at least not before I left.
Ruth just often acted overly familiar with him in public, leading to misunderstandings. Later, she spread the rumor herself, claiming they were childhood sweethearts who had been together for years.
But Steven never once stepped forward to clarify, which gave Ruth the perfect opportunity.
A lie repeated often enough becomes accepted as truth.
The rumor solidified into an undisputed 'fact' in everyone's minds. So, when the media broke the story about Steven and me leaving a hotel together, followed by news two months later of my pregnancy confirmed at a hospital, I was met with a tidal wave of public condemnation.
The Douglas parents knew the truth of the situation. But a few tears from Ruth were enough to soften their hearts. They issued me an ultimatum: get rid of the baby, or they would disown me as their daughter.
After I 'died,' I didn't even deserve a single tear from them. Instead, they held onto their resentment.
"I've already severed ties with them as their mother. Whatever they do from now on has nothing to do with me. And you two shouldn't show your faces here anymore either, lest you dirty my home."
Oscar gritted his teeth in fury. "Is this the respect you show your own parents? We raised an ungrateful wretch!"
"'It would be better if she died. A disgrace like her is useless alive.'
"'If she's dead, we'll finally have some peace and quiet. Sounds good to me.'
I calmly repeated the two sentences I had overheard, word for word. Both had come from their own mouths.
For a moment, my parents were stunned into silence.
They never imagined I had heard those words. In an instant, I had torn away the veneer of their parental decency.
"Those were just things said in anger!" Oscar spluttered, immediately turning the tables. "How can you take them so seriously? Holding a grudge all these years? You're so vindictive!"
Then Oscar tried to spin it all back on me, blaming me instead.
I said, "Why don't you two just drop dead? You old, biased fools! Useless alive.
"If you died, I'd finally have some peace and quiet. Sounds good to me."
Now, I could coolly give back every hurtful word and deed they had directed at me.
People never truly empathize until the knife is twisting in their own flesh.
Sure enough, they both erupted in curses the very next second. "You vicious woman! I hope you get hit by a car, struck by lightning!"