What I couldn’t see, blinking chlorine and humiliation from my eyes, was the battlefield David had opened in our son’s palm. While I stood there, every inch of me cataloged and condemned, Ethan scrolled through a story that had always been edited out: the bathroom floor where I lost more blood than tears; the plastic bracelet they cut off my limp wrist; David’s text to my sister that read, “If it’s her or the baby, she’d kill me for choosing.” He saw the consent forms I never signed, the scar map on my abdomen, the doctor’s note that said “maternal near-miss.” “You think her body is embarrassing?” David typed. “It’s the reason you exist.” Each message stripped away another layer of adolescent cruelty until Ethan’s smirk collapsed into panic. When he bolted from the pool, my shame didn’t vanish; it sharpened into something stranger—fear of what, exactly, David had forced him to fa… Continues…
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