I Saw My Cruel Stepmom Future And Changed It All Chapter 01

I Saw My Cruel Stepmom Future And Changed It All Chapter 01

The day I moved into Hale Manor, five-year-old Jasper hurled a mug of boiling water straight at me.

“You’re not my mom. Get out.”

I was about to snap back.

Lines of floating commentary popped up right in front of my eyes.

[This is it—here comes the supposed cruel stepmom moment!]

[In the parallel book universe plot, she abused him relentlessly. Once he grew up, he confined her to a mental care facility and never let her live peacefully.]

[This little boy just needs someone to treat him gently as a kid, and he’d never turn cruel. No one’s ever cared enough to try, though.]

I stared at the guarded boy and swallowed every harsh word burning on my tongue.

I knelt down and pulled a tissues out of my handbag.

“Did the hot water scald your hands? Let me take a look.”

***

The day I moved into Hale Manor, my five-year-old stepson threw a cup of scalding water straight at me.

The boiling water ran down my forearm, and my skin turned red almost instantly.

“You’re not my mom. Get out.”

The little boy stood there with his neck stiff and his eyes red. His small body was trembling, but he still glared at me with everything he had.

I sucked in a sharp breath from the pain and was just about to speak when lines of floating comments suddenly slid across my vision.

[Oh no, here it comes. The wicked stepmother is about to hit the little villain on day one!]

[In the original novel, she abused him for years. After he grew up, he made sure she paid for everything she’d done, and she spent the rest of her life trapped by the consequences.]

[Honestly, this kid only needed one person to treat him kindly when he was little. Then he never would’ve turned dark. Too bad no one ever cared.]

[Hale’s future mad villain. Cold and unfeeling, ready to take extreme measures without hesitation.]

[But before he turned five, he was just a child nobody wanted.]

I froze.

Floating comments? Original novel? Villain?

I looked down at the little boy in front of me.

Jasper Hale.

He was only five, thin enough to look underfed. A patch of red marked the back of his hand where the hot water had splashed him, but he was gritting his teeth without making a sound.

His eyes were full of wariness and hatred.

But if I looked closer, buried underneath all that anger was fear.

He was afraid I would hit him.

I swallowed the insult already on the tip of my tongue and crouched down, pulling a tissue from my handbag.

“Did the water burn your hand? Let me see.”

Jasper froze for a split second, then stumbled half a step backward.

He hunched his shoulders like a stray cat trapped in a corner, ready to bolt at any second.

“Don’t touch me.”

“I won’t come near you,” I said, setting the tissues flat on the hardwood floor and sliding them toward his feet.

“You can wipe yourself off. I just wanna check how red your skin got.”

He didn’t move a muscle, his dark eyes locked onto mine as if he was weighing whether this was some trap I’d laid.

A frigid voice echoed from the entryway a moment later.

“What’s going on.”

Kaelen Hale leaned against the doorframe, his tailored wool business blazer perfectly pressed, a thick cylindrical tobacco stick rested loosely between his fingers.

He glanced at the bright red painful burn mark stretching up my forearm, then flicked his gaze over to Jasper huddled in the corner.

His face held zero emotion whatsoever.

“Marnie, take him back to his bedroom.”

He never once asked if I was in pain.

He didn’t spare me a second extra glance after that, either.

This marriage had always been nothing more than a contract to settle my family’s debt.

My father owed the Hale family an enormous debt, and this marriage became the price my family agreed to pay.

Kaelen needed a wife on paper to appease his extended Hale estate senior kin, plus someone to manage his notoriously difficult young son.

Whether I was happy or miserable meant nothing to him at all.

More floating commentary drifted across my vision.

[The guy’s totally shut her out right now, acts like Elowen doesn’t even exist.]

[He gets total gradual emotional softening & devotion later, drops to his knees begging her not to leave—I cried through that whole segment.]

[Forget the dad for now, focus on the trauma kid! Shower him with kindness, or he’ll grow up hurting people.]

I watched as Marnie led Jasper away.

He twisted his head to glance back at me, his gaze tangled with a mess of unreadable feelings.

Fine then.

I knew the parallel book universe plot now, and I wasn’t gonna follow its script.

Who said all stepmothers had to be cruel?

And who said every hurt little boy was destined to become a future socially detached antisocial youth?