Flinching.
Asking if I’d leave her.
Part 2 of 3
I had missed everything.
“She’s been whispering lies,” my mother snapped. “Girls like her cling. Manipulate.”
I stared at her.
And felt nothing.
“Get out.”
She blinked.
“You heard me.”
“This is my son’s house.”
“No,” I said. “This is my wife’s home.”
Margaret tried one last time.
“If I leave, she’ll spiral.”
That arrogance.
That control.
I walked to the door and opened it.
“Sixty seconds. Or I call the police.”
That did it.
She left.
My mother stayed.
Crying.
“She wasn’t supposed to take it that far,” she whispered.
Not denial.
Not shock.
Just… poor execution.
“What did you tell her to do?”
“Help her adjust.”
“To what?”
“To motherhood.”
I stared at her.
“You tried to break her.”
“She’s weak!” my mother snapped. “You’re blinded. She’ll ruin your child!”
I felt something inside me collapse.
“Eliza is not weak,” I said quietly. “She trusted the wrong people.”
Upstairs—
Eliza cried.
Real cries this time.
Not silent.
That decided everything.
“Leave,” I told my mother.
“You’re choosing her over me?”
The sentence that ended everything.
I opened the door.
“Leave.”
She did.
And just like that—
My past walked out of my life.
Chapter 3: The Severed Ties
I found Eliza upstairs, wrapped in my shirt, trembling.
I knelt in front of her.
“I’m sorry.”
She didn’t look at me.
“That scares me,” she whispered. “It sounds like you knew.”
“No,” I said. “But I should have.”
That mattered.
“I tried to tell you once,” she said.
My chest tightened.
“When?”
“You were on your laptop. I said she scared me.”
I remembered.
I hadn’t even looked up.
