She Locked Me In Basements And Called It Love Called It Training Chapter 08

“No!” Mom let out a horrific, blood-curdling shriek, throwing herself onto my body.

She began shaking my cold shoulders, sobbing hysterically. “Lily, wake up! Please wake up! Mommy was wrong, I was so wrong…”

“I lied to you before—the kitten didn’t die! I only did that to scare you, it’s still alive and well…”

“And that time on the road, I didn’t actually leave you! I only went to buy you a drink, but when I came back you were gone…”

“Every single time I did your exposure therapy, I was right there watching you! I always made sure you were safe! Why did it go wrong this time? How could this happen?”

Hearing her frantic excuses, the room remained dead silent. The wind outside seemed to die down, leaving only the sound of Mom’s unhinged sobbing.

Dad finally snapped. He marched over and delivered another sharp blow across her face.

“Shut your mouth!” his eyes were completely bloodshot as he glared down at her. “You think you can explain this away?”

He pointed directly at my shattered, twisted leg. “Look at this leg! You forced her to stand in traffic and got her hit by a car!”

“And when a bystander saved her life and brought her to the hospital, you accused her of acting! You dragged her out of bed and threw her into a morgue!”

“She was so consumed by terror that she literally mutilated her own flesh to cope! Every single scar on her body is living proof of your torture! Is this what you call keeping her safe?”

Mom’s head was thrown back by the slap, fresh blood staining her face, but she snapped her head back up with a manic look. “Why is this all on me? What right do you have to judge me?” she shrieked, her appearance completely unraveled.

“If you hadn’t been such a deadbeat who couldn’t provide for this family, would our daughters have had to live like this?”

“After the divorce, you saw how fearless Audrey was and just cruised along, letting her do whatever she wanted! But Lily was born a coward! If I didn’t push her every single day, if I didn’t force her to face her fears, she would have grown up to be completely useless!”

“And now that an accident happened, you get to play the saint and blame me? You’re no better than me!”

Dad’s voice began to tremble, filled with an overwhelming weight of guilt and sorrow. “You keep claiming you were making her tough, but did you ever actually look at her?”

“You never showed up to a single parent-teacher conference. If her counselor hadn’t called my personal number, I would have never known that our daughter spent her entire school day in absolute silence. When she fell and bled on the playground, she would just quietly clean herself up without a single tear, too terrified to ask for help.”

“Her teachers were so horrified by her injuries that they called in a child psychologist. That’s when they discovered she was suffering from severe clinical depression. She was just too terrified to ever tell you, because she knew you’d call her pathetic and useless!”

Dad knelt down, his fingers gently brushing over the frozen cheek of my body. “She was a living, breathing human being, Mom. Not some science experiment for you to show off to satisfy your own sick pride.”

“You thought she was a useless coward, but you didn’t even know she had her own passions. Her bedroom wall was covered with secret sketches and paintings—every single one of them was beautiful. She loved quiet spaces, and she possessed an artistic talent that Audrey never had. And you… you personally shoved her off a cliff and destroyed her…”

Every single word hit her like a physical blow, shredding her defenses.

She parted her lips to argue, to construct another excuse, but the words withered in her throat.

Looking at my broken remains, then at the devastated faces of Dad and Audrey,
and finally at the security monitor displaying my final moments, the delusion
finally shattered.

The quiet, timid daughter who had silently endured every ounce of her cruelty
was never coming back. She had personally killed her.