He Drove Her To The Exam, Left Our Daughter In The Flood Chapter 04

He Drove Her To The Exam, Left Our Daughter In The Flood Chapter 04

“Clara!”

Sienna shrieked, jumping up to pull out tissues to wipe the water from Arthur’s face:

“Clara, I’m the one who asked Arthur to look after Madison. If you want to blame someone, blame me. Why take it out on Arthur?”

“Arthur is out there driving every day for this family, how can you treat him like this?”

I looked at her mockingly, then at Madison, and said word for word:

“Madison, Arthur Vance is Hope’s father, not yours.”

“If you want a dad, go find your biological father. Stop clinging to someone else’s dad like a stray dog.”

The words “biological father” hit Madison like a nerve. She screamed, “You old hag, you’ve got a filthy mouth!” and lunged at me from her seat.

Hope was quick and pulled me away.

Madison missed me.

Instead, she grabbed Hope’s backpack from the chair and dumped everything inside into the boiling pot of the Seafood Grill.

Textbooks, pencil case, admission ticket—in the blink of an eye, they were swallowed by the oily broth, turning into a blurred mess.

Madison shouted as she dumped it:

“Oh, you think you’re so smart? You think you’re so high and mighty?”

“You missed the test anyway, so just stop trying. Go work at a Starbucks.”

“You loser! You’re born but not loved! Trash! Freak! Tomboy!”

The insults poured out like a flood.

My vision went dark, and I raised my hand to slap her.

Before I could hit her, Arthur grabbed my wrist, furious.

“Enough!”

“What is wrong with you!” He pulled Madison behind him to protect her, glaring at me.

“It’s just a charm! You can just go get another one for Hope. Is it worth hitting and screaming like this? Madison is just a child!”

Sienna started crying too.

“Clara, calm down, Madison just doesn’t know any better.”

“If it helps… I’ll pull Madison out of school. I’ll make her work to pay for Hope’s gap year, okay?”

Hearing this made Arthur even more frantic.

He turned and glared at Hope:

“Look at you. What have you been learning from your mother?”

“Just because you can’t go to school, you want to stop others from going! No wonder you were the only one who was late. Even God thinks someone like you doesn’t deserve to be in college!”

“Dad!” Hope couldn’t take it anymore, tears rolling down her face.

“Madison took my charm! She destroyed my admission ticket!”

Arthur looked completely impatient:

“You didn’t want to go to some mid-tier state school anyway. If it’s ruined, it’s ruined. What does it matter!”

Sienna was secretly gloating; Madison was acting superior.

Arthur’s lips were still moving, saying something, but I couldn’t hear him anymore.

My mind was filled with only one word: “Leave!”

My free hand seemed to have a mind of its own as I pulled out the divorce agreement and slammed it on the table.

Then I wrenched my other hand away from Arthur and grabbed Hope. “We’re leaving.”

Arthur froze, panic flashing in his eyes, instinctively wanting to chase us.

But Madison burst into tears right then.

“Dad, please don’t leave me…”

Arthur had one foot out the door, but the other stayed planted.

The elevator doors opened, then closed.

In the end, he didn’t follow.

I could faintly hear him comforting Sienna:

“It’s fine, Clara is just like that. She’ll come back once she cools down.”

“Come on, let’s eat…”

Useless tears fell from my eyes.

So that was how pathetic I was in his eyes.

It turned out all the suffering Hope endured was because she had a pathetic mother.

I turned and hugged Hope, murmuring:

“I’m sorry. It’s all my fault.”

Hope leaned against me and asked in a muffled voice what we should do next.

I wiped my nose and forced a smile.

“Mom is taking you to East Liberty. I’ll have your uncle help find a good prep school, and we’ll try again next year…”

Hope was silent for a few seconds, then looked up.

“No.”

My heart sank, and tears were about to fall again.

It was my fault!

I shouldn’t have exposed the ugliness of my marriage to Hope. She was just a kid, and facing a cheating father and a weak mother, it was hard not to feel cynical.

I was racking my brain for a way to convince her when Hope turned and looked at me seriously.

“Mom, I’m saying I don’t need it. And neither do you.”