Chapter 3

The garish glow of that keyboard dragged me straight back to that helpless afternoon three years ago.

Lulu's shrill sobbing, my mother's blind, furious accusations...

And that stupid keyboard I had coveted but never actually touched...

Every memory slammed into me all at once, accompanied by the phantom agony of electric shocks, drowning me like a tidal wave.

With a violent sweep of my arm, I struck the box right off the table!

The keyboard hit the hardwood floor with a loud crash, plastic keycaps scattering in every direction.

"What is wrong with you?!" my mother shrieked in shock.

Lulu seemed genuinely startled by my outburst, freezing for a second before turning on the waterworks, looking up at my mom in utter devastation: "Mom... I just wanted to get along with him..."

Staring down at the wreckage, my entire body shook uncontrollably. My face had to be stark white.

"Lulu bought you a gift! She moved past what you did, and you pull this kind of psycho tantrum?!"

My mom shot to her feet, her expression terrifyingly dark, her voice trembling with absolute fury.

She stormed around the table, seized my arm, and yanked me toward the floor: "Pick it up! Apologize to Lulu right now!"

Her touch made me violently sick to my stomach. That familiar, suffocating need to control my every breath was back.

Apologize?

Apologize for something I never did?

Apologize for three years of being tortured in hell?

The bottled-up agony, rage, and despair of three full years shattered my sanity in a single heartbeat.

I wrenched my arm out of her grip with enough force to send her stumbling back.

"For my own good? You sent me to that slaughterhouse for my own good?!"

"You want to know why I can't stand you touching me?!"

I tore open the collar of my shirt, exposing the ugly, charred burn scars clustered beneath my collarbone.

"This is the wonderful place you shipped me off to!

"They strapped electrodes to my temples and shocked me until I lost control of my bowels!

"They forced me to clean out septic tanks with my bare hands, and if I hesitated, they shoved it into my mouth!"

I heard my own voice roaring, tears of pure fury burning my eyes.

"Can't you see what kind of venomous snake Lulu is?! Mom! I am your real son!"

"I did it for your own good!" she shouted over me, her voice rising to a frantic pitch.

Her gaze was icy, entrenched in stubborn denial. "Screen addiction ruins people! If I didn't break you of it completely, what would your future look like?! Was I supposed to just sit back and watch you rot?!"

Her words ripped a gaping, freezing void straight through my chest.

Growing up, sure, I played games, but I never failed a single class.

I knew the difference between a screen and reality! What reason did I ever have to steal her damn money?

Why was she so willing to believe the crocodile tears of an outsider over a single word of defense from her own flesh and blood?

Every disappointment over the years finally hardened into a solid block of apathy.

Explaining myself... what was the point anymore?

Looking at her lined yet brutally authoritarian face, every drop of my fight vanished.

A tear slipped down my cheek—not from sadness, but from the sickening realization of how pathetic I was for ever harboring hope.

Looking at my shaved head and gaunt cheeks, her tone suddenly softened, carrying the smug exhaustion of someone who believed she had won:

"Jesse, everything I do comes from love. You suffered these past three years, but I've paved your entire future for you."

"Just get back to school, finish college, and my company... it'll all be yours one day. This little bump in the road is nothing."

Exhausted to my core, I stepped around her without a word, walked back into my bedroom, and locked the door behind me.

Outside, through the wood, I could hear Lulu's fake whimpers and my mother's soft, soothing murmurs.

Late into the night, I lay flat on the mattress, staring blankly at the ceiling.

I heard a key turn in the lock. The door clicked open by an inch; Lulu must have found a spare key.

A silhouette paused in the frame. Once she was certain I was "asleep," Lulu slipped into the room on tiptoe.

I held my breath, watching her through the darkness with cold, open eyes.

She crept over to my desk and carefully tucked an object deep into the inner sleeve of my old backpack.

I didn't move. I didn't make a sound.

I already knew what she was doing.

Was she really that desperate? The very first night I was back, and she was already recycling her old tricks.

Fine by me.

I closed my eyes.

This time, I wanted to see it for myself.

Would my mother believe the physical "evidence" planted before her eyes?

Or would she finally believe the son who had just clawed his way out of hell?