Part 2The Divorce Test

"Why aren't you saying anything, Hazel? Are you too happy for words?"

Seeing me standing frozen in the doorway, my mother called out again.

"Your dad is very satisfied that you got into Yale. He's decided to forgive you."

I let out a cold laugh. Suddenly, I didn't want to play the role of the perfect, obedient child anymore.

"It took him over a decade to forgive me. Dad sure holds a grudge."

"So his only standard for measuring whether a child is good or bad is based purely on their academic performance?"

"If I hadn't gotten into Yale, and only got into an ordinary state college instead, was he planning to continue abandoning this family?"

"Hazel Sterling! Watch your tone!"

Hearing this, my mother instantly exploded. She grabbed the water glass next to her and hurled it at me.

"You think reading a few books makes you special? Now you're talking back to adults, huh?"

"Yes, you're absolutely right! If you had scored even one point less, your father wouldn't have forgiven you so easily!"

The water splashed all over me, and the sharp shards of the shattered glass ricocheted off the floor, cutting my ankle.

I flinched in pain, but my mother just breathed heavily, looking away and snapping:

"Alright, hurry up and change your clothes. We're going to a restaurant to have dinner with your dad."

"He specifically booked a private room to celebrate you getting into a top university. Don't embarrass him."

I wiped the water off myself and applied ointment to the cut on my ankle.

When I looked up again, I was back to being the obedient daughter they expected.

I nodded meaningfully and turned to go into my room.

When we arrived at the restaurant, the man was already waiting in the private room.

This was the first time we had formally met since my father left home.

The man in front of me hadn't changed much. In fact, he looked even more vibrant, and his clothes were much more refined.

It seemed that without me—his "burden"—he had indeed lived a very comfortable life all these years.

"Hazel is here! Dad hasn't seen you in years."

"Look how tall you've gotten. You're a young woman now!"

"Oh my, what happened to your ankle? Are you hurt?"

My mother smoothed it over with a laugh.

"When this silly girl heard she was coming to see you, she was so excited she couldn't walk straight and tripped."

"What about you? You see your daughter and completely forget about your wife?"

My father immediately smiled and wrapped his arm around my mother's waist.

Watching the two of them sitting across from me, acting so sickeningly sweet and inseparable.

My stomach churned violently, and I nearly threw up.

But my father completely failed to notice my discomfort. He eagerly pulled out a chair for me and kept piling food onto my plate.

Seeing me sitting stiffly in the chair without touching anything, he finally asked in confusion:

"Why the long face? Aren't you happy to see Dad?"

Seeing me remain silent, my mother rolled her eyes and slapped me hard on the back.

"This girl has an incredibly withdrawn personality. She acts half-dead at home too, never smiles."

"She acts like she's being abused. She doesn't know how good she has it!"

They kept nagging, shifting into lecture mode again.

I slowly exhaled, slapped my chopsticks down on the table, and abruptly stood up.

"I have a withdrawn personality? I don't know how good I have it?"

"Ask yourselves honestly, do you two even have the right to say that?"

"All these years, have you ever genuinely cared about me?"

Since I was little, whenever I was slandered for being fatherless, my mother would stand by and watch with cold indifference.

Even after returning home, she would join the outsiders in verbally abusing me.

"It's all your fault! That's why your father divorced me!"

"Now that I'm dragging a burden like you around, no one even wants to look at me for remarriage!"

"Still crying? You have no right to cry!"

"If you want people to respect you, then study hard!"

I was bullied outside and battered at home.

And my father, after leaving home, never contacted me again.

He ignored my text messages and wouldn't answer my calls.

Even if we accidentally crossed paths on the street, he would pretend not to know me and quickly walk away.

The suppressed grievances had piled higher and higher, yet I never had the chance to release them.

The moment I talked back, my mother immediately raised her hand and slapped me across the face.

"You kept it together for all these years, but you finally couldn't hide that rotten temper of yours, could you?"

"We used a hands-off parenting style! It was to toughen you up, to make you truly independent! Why can't you understand our good intentions?!"

My father sat to the side and let out a helpless sigh.

I rubbed my stinging cheek and gave up making pointless arguments.

When I pulled a document out of my bag, my father's expression instantly froze. He glared at me in sheer disbelief.