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All Chapters of Raised to Never Be Enough: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

20 Chapters

Chapter 11

After the funeral, my parents were taken back home while the investigation continued. The moment they stepped inside, they began frantically searching for things.Dad roughly opened my laptop. Mom logged into all my social media accounts and tried to delete my chat history."We can't let anyone else see this. What will happen to your job if word gets out? And how will Corey ever hold his head up around the relatives again?"Even after my death, all they cared about was what other people thought. Not once did anyone ask how much I'd suffered before I died.After searching for a while, Dad slammed his fist onto the desk in frustration. He asked, "What's the password?"Mom answered without hesitation, "Her birthday."Dad entered it, but the screen displayed an error. He tried my ID number next, but it was wrong again.They tried more than a dozen passwords, but none of them worked.Finally, Mom suddenly remembered something. She entered Aunt Janey's birthday.The laptop unlocke

Chapter 12

Six months later, the case went to trial.Dad had shaved his head and was wearing his prison uniform.Mom had lost a lot of weight, and half her hair had turned white. The moment she saw Aunt Janey, she burst into tears behind the railing."Please, Janey, say something on our behalf. We've realized our mistake. Please ask Shiloh to forgive us."Aunt Janey looked at her in silence. "You don't finally understand what you did wrong. You've just finally learned what it feels like to suffer."In court, Dad admitted to hitting me but insisted he'd only been disciplining me. Mom admitted to sending those messages but claimed she'd only been afraid I'd go down the wrong path.Their lawyer repeatedly emphasized that neither of them had ever intended for me to die.The judge turned to Dad. "After the deceased suffered a fractured left shoulder, why didn't you take her to the hospital?"Dad lowered his head. "I didn't know it was that serious. She didn't cry out in pain."I almost laughe

Chapter 13

After the trial ended, Aunt Janey returned to the apartment to sort through my belongings.The cabinet with the broken lock stood empty. She didn't throw it away. Instead, she had someone repair the door and install a new lock.There was only one key.She placed it beside my urn and said, "This belongs to you. No one will ever open it without your permission again."While organizing my desk, she found a crumpled sheet of paper tucked into a compartment inside a drawer.The title read, "100 Things I Want to Do".The first item was to wear red clothes outside. The second was to have a key to my own bedroom. The third was to see the ocean.The fourth was to eat an entire cake on my birthday.The fifth was to laugh out loud in front of other people without immediately apologizing.The sixth was to spend the money I earned however I wanted.The seventh was to take Aunt Janey on a trip…The rest of the list was blank.Aunt Janey stared at the list and cried through the entire

Chapter 14

Five years later, Mom was released from prison. She stood outside the old apartment, fumbling with her keys for a long time.The property had already been seized and auctioned off. New decorations welcoming yet another New Year were pasted on the door.A young couple now lived inside, along with a little girl who laughed freely in the living room.Standing in the hallway, Mom listened to that laughter and suddenly doubled over, sobbing. Perhaps she'd remembered how I'd laughed just like that before I turned five.Later, she'd told me that girls shouldn't laugh so loudly or freely. Eventually, I couldn't even let the corners of my mouth turn up without first checking her expression.Dad was still serving his sentence. I'd heard that his temper had gotten worse. When he'd first entered prison, he'd constantly complained that he'd been wrongfully convicted.He'd insisted that every parent hit their kids. He'd claimed that people these days were too soft.Then, one day, a prison o

Chapter 15

I thought the wind had finally carried me away. But when I opened my eyes again, I was still sitting on the branch above the cemetery.Winter was gone.Cicadas buzzed among the thick leaves, and the summer sun had heated the gravestones until they were scorching to the touch.A woman knelt in front of my grave, propping up her phone and sobbing uncontrollably into the camera.It was Mom.Three months after her release from prison, she'd created a social media account called "A Mother's Regret—Losing My Daughter".In her videos, she wore plain clothes, no jewelry, and deliberately left a few strands of white hair visible at her temples."It's been five years since Shiloh passed away. As a failed mother, I live with regret every single day. I want to spend the rest of my life helping other parents learn how to love their children."On camera, she cried so hard that she could barely speak several times.Off camera, her assistant raised a hand, signaling her to pause a little long

Chapter 16

Mom stared intently at the USB drive. "What recording?"She reached out to grab it, but Kendra immediately stepped back. "A recording that has something to do with you."Mom's expression changed slightly, but she quickly regained her composure. "Shiloh wasn't in a good mental state. There's no reason to take anything she said back then seriously."Aunt Janey ignored her. She plugged the USB drive into the computer.There was only one audio file in the folder, and it ran for 23 minutes. It was titled "To the Future Shiloh".The recording had been made at 4:00 pm on New Year's Day. At that time, I'd just discovered that my diaries and letters had been taken from my cabinet.A faint electrical hiss came through the speakers. Then, my voice emerged. It was soft and hoarse, but every word was unmistakably clear."If the future me is listening to this recording, it means I managed to escape. Congratulations, Shiloh. You can lock your bedroom door now. You can use your own money. You c

Chapter 17

The livestream shot to the top of the trending charts.Overnight, the remorseful image Mom had worked so hard to build fell apart completely. The publisher terminated its partnership with her. The platform revoked her livestreaming privileges. People who had once called her a "great mother" began demanding refunds.Mom hid in her rented apartment, afraid to go outside. Still, she didn't think she'd done anything wrong. She created an anonymous account and posted a lengthy statement.She wrote, "I admit my parenting methods weren't perfect, but who can understand a mother's good intentions? Shiloh was withdrawn from a young age. Her father and I gave her everything we had. If her aunt hadn't kept turning her against us, she never would have grown to hate her own parents."At the end of the post, she uploaded several pages from my diary."I hate this family. Sometimes, I wish they'd all disappear. I don't want to be their daughter anymore."She drew red lines beneath those sentence

Chapter 18

Two years later, Dad was released from prison.Seven years in there had left his back noticeably hunched. His hair had turned almost completely white, and he still limped slightly on his right leg when he walked.He didn't go looking for Mom. He didn't go to Aunt Janey's house, either. Instead, he rented a room less than 100 square feet in a suburb and found work at a scrap yard.He used to care more than anything about what other people thought of him. Now, everyone in the neighborhood knew why he'd gone to prison.Some people pointed at him as he walked past and called him a monster. Others dug up news reports about me and showed them to new workers at the scrap yard.Dad never argued with anyone.Every night, he searched through piles of discarded materials for notebooks that hadn't been completely ruined. He wiped them clean and arranged them neatly beside his bed. However, he never dared to write a single word in them.On the seventh day after his release, he went to the po

Chapter 19

In the seventh year since the New Buds Project was founded, it received an unusual plea for help.The sender left no name. There was only one sentence."If a child dies, will their parents finally regret what they did?"Following protocol, a staff member replied and asked for an address and contact information.The sender didn't respond. The following night, another message arrived. This time, it included a photograph.It showed a window fitted with iron bars. Frost had formed on the other side of the glass.The moment Kendra looked at the picture, her expression shifted. She remembered the balcony in my home. She also remembered the storage room where her own father had once locked her in.She didn't wait for a third message. Using the building signs visible in the photograph, the technical team narrowed the location down to an old apartment building in the northern part of the city.Kendra took a team of staff members and the police with her. They searched the buildings one b

Chapter 20

Ten years after my death, the New Buds Project moved into a much larger building.The first floor had a help room staffed around the clock. The second floor housed temporary accommodations. Every room had a lock on the door. The children living there kept their own keys. Staff members weren't allowed to enter without permission.At the end of the hallway stood a red cabinet. There were no diaries or suicide notes inside—only letters sent back by children who had successfully left their abusive homes."I got into college.""I found a job.""I celebrated my birthday on my own for the first time.""Now I can close my door and sleep without anyone kicking it down.""I'm still alive."Those three words appeared more often than any others.The boy who'd once been locked out on the balcony eventually moved north to attend school. He even chose a new name for himself.He chose the name Lazarus to symbolize a fresh start. He said it wasn't to remind himself of what he'd once conside

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