After My Family Broke Me, I Vanished with a Full Scholarship Chapter 07

After My Family Broke Me, I Vanished with a Full Scholarship Chapter 07

The moment Mom saw me, she burst into tears. 

“Are you really going to cut us out of your life completely? Do you have any idea how much we’ve suffered all this time? Noah has already moved out, and Emily won’t even speak to us anymore. Are you planning to punish us like this for the rest of our lives?” 

Even though I had expected it, hearing her blame me for everything again still hurt. 

For years, she had taken every negative emotion 

out on me. 

Whenever she was unhappy with Emily, I had to 

listen to every complaint. 

Whenever she fought with Noah, I became the 

target of her anger. 

Whenever things went badly between her and Dad, 

I was still the one who took the brunt of her rage. 

After unloading everything onto me, she would 

feel better, but she never tried to solve the actual 

problem. 

She had never wanted to fix anything. 

She only wanted to dump all her stress onto me 

and force me to remain obedient. 

But I was no longer the person I used to be. 

“You did this to yourselves.” 

“What did you say?” 

Mom stared at me as though she could not 

believe I had answered her that way. 

Dad looked far more exhausted than before, and 

his tone was more restrained than Mom’s. 

He lowered his voice. 

“Lily, you’re in college now. You need to handle. 

things like an adult.” 

“If I hadn’t run away, would you have ever let me go 

to college?” 

Dad did not answer immediately. 

“We didn’t come here to argue with you.” 

Mom immediately became flustered. 

“Choosing a college is a huge decision. Why didn’t 

you talk to us first?” 

Talk to them? 

They would only have insisted that I attend a 

university close to home so they could continue 

controlling my life. 

They did not want a daughter. 

They wanted someone who would obey them 

forever and appear the moment they needed her. 

“You need to leave. I have class.” 

Mom started crying again. 

“Lily, do you still hate me? Do you know how much 

pain I’ve been in?” 

“Can you stop putting on an act? Are you really going to blame me for all of this too?” 

I shot back, “Whether you stay married is not my responsibility. Stop pushing every problem onto me. I’ve carried the weight of your emotions and 

responsibilities for long enough.” 

Mom stared at me as though she genuinely could not understand what I was accusing her of. 

“Lily, what are you even talking about? When did I 

ever make you carry those things for me?” 

“I started doing housework when I was seven. You were too afraid to ask Noah or Emily because you knew they would fight back, so you pushed everything onto me. I was already eighteen, and I 

still didn’t even have a room of my own. In front of our relatives and friends, you even claimed that I 

was the one who didn’t want any privacy.” 

“For years, whenever you and Dad had a problem, 

you took your anger out on me. Then you turned 

around and said I was the one with mental 

problems.” 

My voice trembled as I raised my wrist and 

showed them the overlapping scars. 

“These scars are the result of what you did to me. If you truly regret it, never come looking for me. 

again.” 

Dad turned his face away and would not meet my 

eyes. 

Mom bit down hard on her lip. 

For one brief moment, regret appeared on her 

face, but it was quickly replaced by anger. 

She could not accept that the daughter who had 

obeyed her for more than a decade now dared to 

defy her to her face. 

She opened her mouth as though she wanted to 

insult me again, but when she saw the coldness in 

my eyes, she backed down. 

In the end, all she could do was cover her face and 

cry. 

I said nothing else and turned away, walking back 

onto campus. 

I was an adult now, and I would never return to the 

home where I had never truly felt safe. 

My parents occasionally claimed that they regretted what they had done, but they never offered to pay my tuition or living expenses. 

Margaret, on the other hand, would sometimes send me money to help cover my expenses. 

I was always deeply grateful to her. 

“Margaret, thank you. I promise I’ll pay you back 

someday.” 

She always replied with a smiling–face emoji. 

“If you’re free during winter break, come have 

dinner at my house.” 

I agreed immediately. 

I looked out the window at the sunlight spilling 

across the campus lawn and knew that, at last, I 

was free to live on my own terms.