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I said calmly, “Where you choose to go is your business, but I won’t take you in anymore.”
Color drained from Spencer’s face in a heartbeat.
As I was leaving, his voice cracked with sobs. “Mom… are you really abandoning me?”
I’d made myself perfectly clear.
The school bus was already waiting outside.
I was leading the kids over when suddenly, screams erupted behind us.
I turned to see Spencer collapse on the ground.
There was a vicious, glaring gash across his left wrist.
Blood gushed forth, pooling on the ground in a horrifying spectacle.
Beside his wrist lay a bloodstained fruit knife.
I just couldn’t believe that, after all these years, the boy who had always been so calm and self–controlled could do something so reckless and unimaginable.
A crowd quickly gathered around Spencer, but for a long moment, not a single soul dared to reach out to him.
Spencer lay on the ground, gazing at me calmly through the crowd.
I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
Before I knew it, my body lunged forward on instinct, limbs trembling violently with overwhelming rage.
I frantically unwound my scarf and pressed it down on Spencer’s wrist to stop the bleeding.
My soul seemed to hover in midair, unable to snap back to reality.
Caleb walked over, still on the phone. The moment his eyes landed on Spencer, his phone slipped from his hand and crashed to the floor.
He charged forward, his entire body trembling with fury as he roared, “Have you lost your damn mind?”
When the ambulance arrived, I rode with Spencer in the ambulance to the hospital.
The whole ride to the hospital, I just sat there in a daze, my mind completely blank.
The paramedic reassured me in the ambulance, “His condition isn’t life–threatening. Please try not to worry.”
Staring blankly at the doctor, I murmured distractedly, “Spencer has congenital heart disease. Please take
12:44 Thu, Sep 25
Chapter 7
extra care.”
The paramedics exchanged grave looks and immediately regrouped around Spencer.
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Though Spencer’s condition appeared serious, the preliminary examination at the hospital confirmed no major injuries.
I stood in the hallway for a long time before finally stepping into Spencer’s hospital room.
In the hospital bed, Spencer sat propped up against the headboard.
He lowered his head uneasily, unable to meet my eyes.
I walked to the bedside and sat down.
Neither he nor I broke the silence.
After a long while, Spencer finally spoke, his voice barely above a whisper. “I knew what I was doing. The angle and force were calculated. It wouldn’t hit an artery. It just looks bad, but—”
My hands shook violently, clenched into fists.
Without warning, I raised my hand and struck him hard across the face.
My teeth chattering with rage, I spat, “Is this what your education was for?”
Spencer’s head snapped to the side from the force of the slap, his eyes red–rimmed with unshed tears. He didn’t say another word.
A suffocating silence hung in the air.
After a long, long silence, I finally heard Spencer’s voice, barely louder than a mosquito’s hum.
He said, “I just wanted you to look at me again. I… I know I was wrong. I don’t want you to leave me, Mom. And… I can’t bear to lose Granddad and Maxie.”
I looked at him, his swollen cheek, and his disheveled appearance. “Spencer, do you truly remember Granddad? Do you remember Maxie at all? And tell me honestly, do you even remember me?”
Spencer clenched his fists tightly.
Just as his tears were about to fall onto the bed, he hurriedly wiped them away.
I handed him a glass of water and looked at him calmly. “When you were eleven, Granddad had a cerebral hemorrhage. On his deathbed, he said he wanted to see you one last time.
“You refused, saying you had a competition the next afternoon. Later, you didn’t even go, thinking it was beneath you.
“When you were eight, the Burns family accused me of scheming against your dad, saying I used you to marry into their family. You believed them without question. I tried to explain, but you wouldn’t listen.
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Chapter 7
:
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“You said, ‘Mom, if you weren’t like that, why would everyone say so?‘ But do you remember when you were seven, when you were falsely accused of stealing that medal?”
Spencer’s shoulders quivered. His eyes were filled with nothing but anguish and remorse.
He could never forget that moment at age seven–the most desperate time of his life.
He had just lost the competition when the boy who took first place in class falsely accused him of stealing his medal.
That boy was a prodigy, just like Spencer.
At such a young age, he’d already mastered the art of doctoring surveillance footage.
The doctored surveillance footage, coupled with testimony from his colluding classmates, had formed overwhelming evidence against him.
Caleb had struck Spencer hard across the face.
After many years, the Burns family once again regarded Spencer with undisguised contempt and irritation.
When the school was about to issue the expulsion notice, I said, “Over my dead body!”
I wouldn’t let it go, even when I became the laughingstock of our circle.
But in the end, when the school reluctantly handed over that surveillance footage, I managed to find someone who proved it was fabricated.
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