Mom, Please Love Me

I looked up in shock and met my mother's cold, indifferent face.

But all I saw in her eyes was eighteen years' worth of disgust.

I clenched the hem of my shirt, my voice trembling.

"Mom… didn't you say that once I'd donated blood eighteen times… I'd finally be your clean child? So why are you still throwing me away?"

That one sentence seemed to ignite something in her.

"Clean? What right do you have to be clean?!"

She lunged at me, her fingernail digging into my forehead like a dagger.

"Those eyes of yours! They're exactly like that monster's! Every time you look at me, it's like you're reminding me of how filthy that night was! How disgusting! Why don't you just die?! Why?!"

I didn't have time to dodge. She shoved me backward, and I stumbled, my back slamming hard against the wall. The pain shot through me. It hurt so much I couldn't even speak.

My younger sister, Alice Ballmer, rushed forward at just the right moment, wrapping her arms around our hysterical mother, tears streaming down her face.

She turned to me and snapped, "Iris! You're so selfish! You know full well you're nothing but an ineradicable stain, and yet you still provoke Mom like this—are you trying to drive her to her death?!"

A stain?

I froze.

Bits and pieces of the "past" that the adults in my family had occasionally let slip started surfacing in my mind, fragmented and hazy.

Before I ever existed, my parents had been deeply in love, about to walk down the aisle.

But the night before their wedding, my mother was attacked—dragged into an alley by a drunk stranger. When they found her, there wasn't a single spot on her body that wasn't bruised or torn. She was barely clinging to life.

From that day on, my mother fell into an abyss. To help her heal, my father took her traveling, to therapy, tried everything he could to pull her back from the edge. Eventually, she slowly opened up again, and they finally held the wedding that should have happened years ago.

Later, she got pregnant. It should have been a joy—but the ultrasound revealed twins.

The doctor delivered the grim news: based on the timing, one of the children was not my father's. It was most likely the rapist's.

But because they were twins, a forced abortion would put my mother's life at risk. She had no choice but to carry both to term.

From that day on, I became this family's eternal shame.

My very existence was a constant reminder to everyone that the unspeakable horror truly happened.

Every single night since I could remember, I'd hear my mother next door, cradling my sister in her arms, humming a soft lullaby.

And me?

I could only curl up on my cold iron bed frame, hugging myself tight. I'd pat my own back, over and over, just the way my mother did with my sister—trying to soothe myself to sleep.

I'd always known my mother hated me. But it wasn't until now that I finally understood the real reason.

So this was it. She hated me because of these eyes?

Watching my mother scream and thrash in agony, I felt a gaping hole tear open in my chest, letting in nothing but freezing wind.