From Unwanted To Dominator: Her Comeback! Chapter 12

From Unwanted To Dominator: Her Comeback! Chapter 12

Chapter 12 She’s Still Your Moher

After that health scare, Claire changed.

She started calling me-checking in, asking how I was, inviting me over for dinner again and again.

Dad pulled me aside one day.

Finished

“Annie… she’s not young anymore. She can’t take much stress. Just… humor her a little. Yeah, she messed up. But she’s still your mother.”

I gave a dry laugh. “When you treated me like that back then-did you ever stop to think I was just a kid?”

My dad was silent for a long moment. Then he said, “So… you’re not planning to forgive us?”

“If every kind of pain can just be forgiven, then what was the point of all those dark years I walked through alone? Don’t test me anymore. I’ll take care of your basic needs when you’re old-that’s my duty. But don’t expect some heartwarming mother-daughter act from me.”

My words were harsh, but I meant them. I needed clear lines between us.

Dad must’ve told her what I said-because she stayed away for months.

Then, in one of those strange twists of fate, Wren retired from teaching and came to Jinglu to see me. I offered to show her around.

When Mom heard, she asked to join us.

“I’d love to meet this Wren you always talk about,” she said.

I shook my head. “Not this time. Wren came all this way for me. If you come too, she won’t feel at ease.”

“Annie! How can you pick some outsider over your own mom?!”

“Wren’s not an outsider!” My serious tone startled Mom. “If it weren’t for Wren, I wouldn’t be who I am today. I’ve never really understood,” I went on, “you used to hate me-couldn’t wait to give me away. So why are you suddenly clinging to me every day now? Did Jasmine fail to give you the perfect mother-child bond you wanted? And now you’re trying to make up for it with me?”

“Annie! How can you say that?” she cried, pained but already shifting into that familiar moral high ground. “I’m your mother!”

“You’re my mother in name only,” I said. “Biologically, yes-but never emotionally. Ask yourself honestly: Did you ever act like a mother? When I was sick, you never comforted me. When you went out, you never took me. And when you sent me back to Grandma’s-you looked me in the eye and said, ‘Your birth was a mistake. I had nightmares for years because of those words. If it weren’t for Wren, I don’t know who I’d be today. Mrs. Hayes-you reap what you sow. Your coldness, your favoritism… this is the result. Don’t try to pull rank on me with your ‘elder’ status. That act doesn’t work on me anymore. So let’s keep our lives separate. And please-don’t ruin the peace I’ve finally found.”

“Is there nothing I can do now?” she whispered, her voice breaking. Her eyes filled with so much regret it looked like it might drown her.

“Yes,” I said. “Forgiving you would be a betrayal of the child I was.”