The Day I Let Him drown

My parents always said the world had no sympathy for the weak. So from the moment my younger brother and I could walk, they put us through what they called the 'Strong Child Program.' At five years old, we had to run five kilometers every day. If we could not finish, we were not allowed to eat. At seven, my brother broke his arm. My parents refused to let the doctors use anesthesia, saying enduring pain was a lesson every strong person had to learn. At nine, I burned with a 104℉ fever. Instead of taking me to the hospital, they wiped my body with ice water and forced me to endure it because 'sick children grow stronger immunity.' Then, on the first day of summer vacation, my father announced this year's special training: We were going to learn to swim in the Roaring Spine River. No life jackets. No safety gear. "You only learn after choking on water a few times," my father said. But my brother choked over a hundred times and still could not swim. I desperately swam toward him, trying to pull him back to shore, but somehow the distance between us only kept growing. I called my father, screaming for help, begging him to call emergency services. But after listening to me, he only snorted coldly. "Who learns swimming without swallowing some water? "Your brother isn't made of paper. "Stop yelling and focus on learning to swim." But by then, my brother had already been swept away by the current…

Despite me being three months pregnant, my husband asked me to jump into the water to help his first love look for her necklace. I teared up and begged my husband not to make me do this . Yet his friends all criticized me. “He’s just asking you to jump into the water. You’re the only one who can swim here. Nothing will go wrong if you’re only in for a little while.” “Minerva, that’s the memento Violet’s mother left for her.” I tried to keep fighting against it and grabbed the hem of Shaun’s shirt. But he shoved me into the sea. I struggled against the water as I hoped to see any hint of pity in Shaun’s eyes. Yet he said, “Minerva, you’re an excellent swimmer. You’ll be fine.”

Three days after his first love Mandy's death, my husband locked me in a steel cage and sank me into the ocean. "You vicious woman," he spat. "Stay here and repent to Mandy!" He didn't know I carried his child. I thrust the pregnancy confirmation toward him, but he walked away without a backward glance. Yet when he later saw my corpse—bloated and decomposing in the seawater—he went insane.

Hadden's sister had merely choked on some water at the pool while she was swimming, and for that, he shoved me into the pool after tying me up. He left me with only a small hole for air that was barely an inch. He said I would have to pay double for every grievance Julia suffered. I never learned how to swim. There was nothing I could do but try my best to breathe as I sobbed and begged him to let me out. Yet all I received was a lecture. "You'll never learn if I don't teach you a lesson now." I struggled to stay afloat, but… It took five days before Hadden's anger dissipated and he put me out of my misery, but it was already too late. "I'll let you go this time, but you'd better not make the same mistake again!" I had already drowned to death.

The yacht I'm steering crashes into a huge wave, scaring my husband's junior, who has a heart condition. So, my husband orders someone to tie me up and dangle me in the ocean by a rope. He even tells the captain to head straight into the waves. "You know Wren has a heart condition, yet you still scared her! How can you be so evil?" I beg him to let me go and tell him that I was following a charted path; I didn't mean for anything to happen. However, he just mocks me. "You've been a yacht driver for so long. Haven't you experienced anything like this before? I'll make you go through what Wren did! Let's see whether you'll pull this again!" After a day and night of this torment, he relents and decides to pull me back up. It's too bad he doesn't know that the waves have already torn me to shreds.

Over Labor Day weekend, my workaholic husband finally agreed to take our two kids on a beach vacation. I was out on the water with my son, Blake Warren, when the ocean surface suddenly exploded with 99 towering columns of water. Blake nearly tumbled into the sea from the shock, screaming as he clung to me desperately. From a yacht not far away came the cheers of my husband, Zachary Warren, and his secretary, Celeste Quinn. I gripped my phone tightly and called him. "Zachary, have you lost your mind? Stop this right now! Blake is here too!" Yet, he only sneered. "You wouldn't let Celeste come on this trip, and she's been upset for days because of it. She got her feelings hurt, so I have to make it up to her somehow. Besides, it'd be better if that bastard son of yours just died anyway. Then, he ordered someone beside him, "Fire 50 more torpedoes. Teach her a lesson she won't forget." Before he had even finished speaking, wave after wave of water columns erupted around my boat. As Blake was about to fall into the water, I screamed with every ounce of strength I had left. "Zachary! Stop this now! This is your own son, Blake!"