All Chapters of They Regretted Blaming Me After I Died: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

The torn pieces of paper fell to the floor.“Naomi, once Mabel can walk again, you can go to university, okay?”Mom asked me that with tears in her eyes.I said nothing. I crouched down and picked up the scraps of paper, one by one. I shed no tears.From that day on, I never mentioned going to university again.The living room fell silent. Mom and Dad stood with their backs to the hallway.“From now on, we need to treat Naomi better,” Mom said in a soft voice.Then came a soft creak. The sound of wheelchair wheels rolling across the hardwood suddenly filled the room.Mom and Dad spun around. Mabel had somehow wheeled herself out of her room.Their expressions changed instantly. They thought she had overheard them and was about to lose her temper.Mom hurried to her feet, suddenly feeling awkward.“Mabel, Mom didn’t mean it like that…”Mabel lowered her head and remained silent. Instead, she wheeled herself over to the table.Her eyes fell on the plate of ribs. Then she sai

It was pitch-black outside.Only the dim glow of the streetlights remained, reflecting off the wet pavement left behind by the rain. There was nothing else.Mabel pressed her lips together until they turned pale. She lowered her head and looked at her legs.“My right leg has been hurting all day.” Her voice trembled slightly. “Whenever my leg started hurting, Naomi would always come home early to be with me. She’d massage my leg for me. But she still hasn’t come home.”A deathly silence fell over the living room. None of the three of them spoke. The only sound was the steady tick-tock of the clock on the wall.I stood beside the dining table. I looked at the plate of ribs that had gone cold twice.I wanted to pick it up. I wanted to set it down in front of Mabel. I wanted to tell her to have her dinner first and that she did not have to wait for me.However, my hand passed through the bowl.…A typhoon swept through the city that day, bringing torrential rain.I went out to

Dad reached out with trembling hands.He took the evidence bag from the officer. It was almost weightless, yet in his hands it seemed to weigh a thousand pounds.He tore open the evidence bag and drew out the bloodstained bundle within. Layer upon layer of plastic had been wound tightly around it, as though whoever had wrapped it had been determined to keep its contents safe at all costs.His hands trembling, Dad slowly peeled away each layer.At the very heart of the bundle lay a pristine cardboard box, untouched by the chaos around it. Foreign lettering adorned the lid.The box was immaculate. Not a drop of rain had seeped through, and not a trace of blood had touched it.Dad opened the box.Inside lay a brand-new pair of imported knee braces, fitted with heating pads in the lining.Beneath them was a crumpled receipt. The total came to eight hundred dollars.Mabel sat motionless in her wheelchair.Her eyes locked onto the braces. Her pupils suddenly contracted.She recogn

Dad fumbled for the light switch.The dim bulb overhead flickered twice before finally coming to life. Its weak glow barely reached the corners of the room. The space was so cramped there was hardly enough room to turn around.A narrow wooden bed stood against the wall, covered by an old quilt gone stiff with age.There was no wardrobe. A few battered cardboard boxes were stacked in one corner, with two faded delivery uniforms draped over them, their colors washed nearly white from years of wear.This was where I had lived for more than a decade. In this house, I had been little more than a shadow kept out of the light.Mom stumbled inside.She made it to the bed before her legs gave way. She sank to her knees.Her head lowered, and her eyes fell upon the darkness beneath the bed.She reached underneath and felt around blindly.Then she pulled out a large black plastic bag. The mouth of the bag had been tied into a tight knot.Mom tore it open. Inside were rolls upon rolls of

“You guilt-tripped her into sacrificing her whole life, and you guilt-tripped me into letting you do it!”Mabel pointed at the bloodstained toilet paper on the floor.“Look at this! Look at what she was reduced to! We’re all monsters. We’ve been feeding off her for years! We killed her together! We’re all murderers!”Those words landed like a series of blows.Dad staggered backward. His back struck the doorframe. His lips trembled, but not a single word came out.He had always believed Mabel hated me. He always told himself that hurting me was the price of keeping her happy.Now he understood that it had never been about her. Those were simply the excuses they had used to justify themselves.They had grown accustomed to taking every ounce of their pain, frustration and resentment and pouring it onto the daughter they loved least.Mom remained crumpled on the floor as she watched Mabel come undone.Then her eyes fell on the acceptance letter she had painstakingly pieced back to