My Family Left Me on Read So I Disappeared Forever Chapter 08

My Family Left Me on Read So I Disappeared Forever Chapter 08

By my eighteenth day in the hospital, the casts still hadn’t come off, but I had begun taking my medication on schedule.

Dr. Morgan checked in on me every afternoon. Sometimes we talked for half an hour, and sometimes for a full hour. Gradually, I began to say more.

I no longer weighed every word, ready to swallow it the moment someone looked displeased.

For the first time, I was truly talking.

I told her about my fear, my anger, and the things I had never shared with anyone.

“I think something was already wrong while I was pregnant.”

“One night, I suddenly didn’t want to do anything at all. I just lay there and couldn’t make myself get up.”

“I told Ethan, but he asked how I could possibly be tired when I hadn’t done anything all day.”

“So I stopped talking about it.”

Dr. Morgan wrote everything down without interrupting me once.

That afternoon, Ethan came to the hospital.

He hesitated in the doorway before pulling a document from his bag.

It was the same divorce agreement.

“My lawyer said that if you won’t sign, we’ll have to let the court settle everything.”

I studied him.

He had lost weight, and dark circles shadowed his eyes. The public backlash must have been wearing him down.

“I want custody,” I said.

“Evie, in your current condition…”

“My son stays with me.”

His brow tightened.

“You need to be reasonable. You can’t even take care of yourself right now.”

“Says who?”

I braced my hands against the mattress and forced myself to sit straighter. Pain tore through my bones, making me suck in a breath, but I held his gaze.

“You, or my mother?”

He looked away.

“Your mother agrees with me.”

“She’s been making every decision from the beginning.”

My voice trembled, but I kept going.

“She decided to rip out my flowers. She decided to take my child. She decided to tell the entire family that I was violent.”

“What about you? Did you have a single opinion of your own?”

He remained silent for a long time.

Ten seconds passed, then twenty.

“Evie, I’m going to be honest with you.”

He placed the agreement on the nightstand.

“Whatever is going on between you and your mother, I can’t fix it, and I don’t want to be involved anymore. I just want a normal family.”

“What does normal mean to you?”

I stared at him.

“My mother came to help after I gave birth, and your wife ended up jumping off a rooftop. Is that your idea of normal?”

He shot to his feet.

“If that’s how you’re going to frame it, then I’ll see you in court.”

He had reached the door when I called his name.

“Ethan.”

He stopped but didn’t turn around.

“The night I messaged my mother, I messaged you too.”

“I told you I was sorry, and you replied, [What is it this time]?”

“If you’d walked into the living room and looked at me that night, even for a moment, I might never have gone up to the rooftop.”

His shoulders trembled slightly.

Then he opened the door and left.

The room remained quiet for about fifteen minutes before the door opened again.

This time, Mom came in.

She must have been standing outside listening. She had always done that.

“Evie.”

Her voice was cautious.

It was the first time I had heard her speak to me that way.

“I know I did some things wrong.”

She pulled a chair to my bedside and sat down, twisting her hands anxiously in her lap.

“But you have to understand me too. I don’t know much about medicine. I didn’t understand postpartum depression.”

“I thought you were just going through a rough patch.”

“If you’d only explained it to me properly…”

“I did.”

I cut her off.

“On the nineteenth day after I gave birth, I told you. My exact words were, ‘Mom, something doesn’t feel right.'”

“Do you remember what you said?”

“You told me every new mother was tired. You said no one had come to help you after you gave birth, and you’d survived.”

Her lips trembled.

“After that, I stopped trying.”

I looked up at the ceiling.

“It wasn’t that I never told you. You refused to listen.”

“You knew something was wrong with me. You simply didn’t believe it mattered.”

“You tore out my flowers, took away my child, and told everyone I was crazy. You pushed away everyone who might have helped me and cut off every way out.”

“Then you came here and asked why I never spoke to you properly.”

She twisted the hem of her shirt in her fists until her nails broke the skin of her palms.

“I… I only wanted what was best for you.”

“Please stop saying that.”

I closed my eyes.

“I’m begging you.”

The room remained silent for a long time.

At last, she slowly rose and walked to the door.

This time, she didn’t say anything else.

She simply closed it gently behind her.

It was the only time she had ever left without making a sound.