Part 2Don’t You Believe Me Now

I don’t know how much time passed, but miraculously, a strange warmth began to bloom inside me.

My mind cleared slightly, and I couldn’t help but laugh at myself, a dry, bitter sound.

Mom was right. I’m a stubborn fool. Even this isn’t enough to kill me.

“Willow, it’s been an hour already. She must have learned her lesson.”

Dad sighed, watching Mom continuously glance toward the door. “Lydia, what are you proving by going head-to-head with the kid?”

“Who said I care about her! I just want to see how much backbone she has!”

“An hour, and she still hasn’t admitted she was wrong. She still thinks she’s right, doesn’t she!”

“She’s still fighting me! Fine, we’ll see how long she can hold out!”

Mom’s shrill voice pierced the howling wind and burrowed into my ears.

I offered a weak, desolate smile. It had always been this way. Why did I keep clinging to the vain hope that it would change?

The sharp, mean-spirited insults continued from inside the house.

Every word was a needle dipped in ice, pricking my heart over and over, making my whole body tremble.

“What a wretched child! A dead weight! She’ll do anything sleazy just to avoid studying!”

“That time she missed her period for three months—she tried to lie and say it was stress!”

“Stress? She’s a teenager with a roof over her head and food on the table! What stress could she possibly have?”

“She was fooling around with some boy, got knocked up, and had her head turned! No wonder she couldn’t focus on her books!”

“Lydia! The doctor said she wasn’t pregnant!” Dad’s voice rose in protest.

“Not pregnant? She was throwing up and missed three months! How is that possible?”

“And I found birth control pills hidden in her nightstand!”

“She probably didn’t want me to know, so she sneaked out, bought the pills, and took care of it herself!”

Those words were like a rusted key, violently twisting the lock on a deep-seated, forbidden memory.

The crushing fear and humiliation from that time surged up, an icy tide threatening to drown me.

It was after the first round of exams in my junior year. My rank had only dropped five places.

I had barely handed the report card to Mom before her open palm cracked across my face.

She dragged me by the arm and forced me down onto the cold, unforgiving tile of the living room floor, making me kneel.

Hands on her hips, she paced in front of me, her eyes burning with a hatred that felt like it could strip the skin from my bones.

“You’re a failure! You worthless piece of nothing! With this level of competence, why even bother with school?”

“If you don’t get your rank back up next time, you’re done! You can roll out of here and get a job—screwing bolts in a factory or wiping tables! Be a nobody for the rest of your life!”

“Other girls your age are already married! Who else is still coddling you with books?”

“If I hadn’t made you study, you’d already be carrying one baby and pregnant with another!”

“If you get this score again, forget school. Find a husband while you’re still young enough to catch a good one.”

I lay on the floor, my knees aching on the hard tile, tears of shame mixing with the cold sweat, but I didn’t dare make a sound.

I bit my lip until I tasted blood, engraving her words into my memory.

I was terrified. Terrified of being thrown out, terrified of having nowhere to go, terrified of being forced to marry a stranger.

I did remember a time, though. Back in middle school, when I won the top spot in the whole grade. Mom secretly bought me the fountain pen I wanted.

She even left a note: Keep going, Willow. You are your mother’s hope.

Another time, when I had a fever, she stayed up all night, wiping my face, holding me, and whispering, “Willow, get better soon.”

But somewhere along the way, she stopped seeing me. All she saw were my scores. The gentleness vanished.

I studied myself sick, just wanting to see her smile at me again, even once.

But that smile never came back.

From that moment on, I became a wind-up toy, sleeping only two hours a night.

I was at my desk before dawn, reviewing notes. When my eyelids got too heavy, I splashed cold water on my face. Late at night, the only light in the house came from my bedroom. I worked problems until my fingers were stiff and my eyes burned, my nerves stretched taut, like a string about to snap.

The constant stress finally broke my body. My period became irregular, then the flow dwindled, and then it stopped completely for three months.

I hid it, terrified to tell her, but she found out anyway.

She didn’t ask. She didn’t scream hysterically. She simply grabbed my wrist and dragged me out of the house toward the school.

And that quiet, cold demeanor frightened me more than any rage.