Chapter 637: The Day She Tried to Leave and Learned She Couldn’t

Chapter 636: The Day She Tried to Leave and Learned She Couldn’t

Sophia kept quiet. Her gaze darted to the man who was sitting too comfortably on the bed, half-naked too.

"What exactly were you doing?" her mother demanded.

"Nothing!" Sophia said quickly, panic beginning to creep into her voice. "I ran into him, that’s all. I didn’t—he was the one who..."

"Enough."

The word was sharp enough to silence her immediately... again.

Her mother’s gaze hardened.

"You expect me to believe that?" she asked, her voice lowering into something far more dangerous. "That you just happened to ’run into him’?"

Sophia nodded quickly because that was the truth.

"Yes," she said. "That was all. He held onto me bu—"

"Now, young one, why would you lie against me like that? I wasn’t the one who held onto you—you held onto me, your arms wrapped around my waist," the man said, interrupting Sophia.

Sophia felt like someone had poured a bucket of cold water over her, because surely she had not heard that right?

She turned to her mother. "That’s a lie. You have to believe me."

"Really?" her mother asked.

Sophia nodded eagerly. "It’s true. I didn’t do anything. He was the one who held onto me..."

"And you think I’d believe that when I know very well how much of a slut you are?" her mother asked her.

Sophia had learned the word from the few books she had read, and she knew it wasn’t a pleasant word. And it wasn’t something a mother should be using on her child at all.

She froze in shock.

"...What?"

"I said," her mother repeated slowly, each word deliberate, "you are a slut. I always knew you were one. You hate that all the attention is on me, don’t you? That you don’t get the attention you want on yourself, that everyone is focused on me. You hate it..."

"I don’t understand. I never... I didn’t say anything like that."

"But you think about it, don’t you?" her mother asked her.

Once more, Sophia was confused by her mother’s words. Surely there was something wrong somewhere, right?

The room seemed to tilt.

"I..." Sophia began, then swallowed. "I don’t... I really..."

"You’re lying," her mother said. "Trying to twist things to make yourself look innocent."

"I’m not lying," Sophia whispered, her voice shaking now. "I didn’t do anything. He was the one who—"

"And you didn’t do anything to invite him, right? You didn’t do anything to make him touch you. You didn’t hug him first, rubbing yourself all over him?"

Sophia’s breath caught.

"I didn’t invite anything," she said, more firmly now, even as her chest tightened painfully. "I didn’t even—"

"Stop."

Her mother stepped closer.

"Do you think I’m a fool?" she asked quietly. "Do you think I don’t know what you do?"

Sophia shook her head, her throat tightening.

"I don’t do anything you don’t want me to."

But her mother wasn’t listening.

She never had been.

The words that followed were worse than anything Sophia had heard before. They didn’t strike her body—they didn’t leave marks that could be seen—but they cut deeper than anything else ever had.

Each one settled into her, heavy and suffocating, reshaping something inside her in ways she didn’t yet understand.

And the worst part was, a part of her tried to believe it.

Because that was easier.

Easier than accepting that her mother was wrong.

Easier than accepting that this was not her fault.

She stood there, taking it, her hands trembling faintly at her sides, her voice disappearing entirely as the accusations continued.

Her mother continued telling her over and over again that Sophia was the reason the man had approached her. The man smiled in delight as he stared at Sophia, and at some point he winked at her as her mother moved through the room, hurling insults at Sophia.

At some point, the man mouthed to Sophia, Beg me to help you.

And perhaps that was the point Sophia snapped.

And so she started devising a plan right on the spot to get away, to leave her mother—but Sophia did not register the fact that her mother would take note of the wheels turning in her head.

Her mother stopped and then closed the distance between her and Sophia.

"What are you thinking about, dear daughter?" her mother asked softly. "Surely it’s not a way to leave, right?"

Sophia’s eyes widened in shock, and that was the moment she gave herself away. Her mother smiled, gaze locked on Sophia.

"Dear child, get that thought out of your head. You cannot leave me. You can run, you can go wherever you want."

Her fingers lifted, brushing lightly against Sophia’s cheek in a gesture that might have been gentle, if not for the coldness behind it.

"But I will find you."

Sophia’s breath hitched.

"No matter where you go," her mother continued, "no matter how far you run... I will find you."

Her grip tightened slightly.

"And I will bring you back."

Sophia felt something inside her crack.

"Because you belong to me," her mother said. "And I love you far too much to let you go."

Sometimes, the deepest kind of hurt did not come from strangers.

It came from the people you loved. From the ones you held onto, even when everything told you that you shouldn’t.

And Sophia’s mother knew that. She knew where to press. She knew exactly what to say. Exactly how to take something fragile and twist it until it bent the way she wanted.

Even with her mother’s words, Sophia had tried to escape that night, but she should have known it wasn’t possible.

Not against something that had been shaping her for so long.

Each try was met with resistance.

And so, slowly, she folded.

Enough for her mother to take what remained and mold it into something obedient.

Something that would not try to leave again.

Because Sophia had learned something that day.

Not all cages had walls.

Some were built from words.

From fear.

From love that wasn’t really love at all.

And those were the hardest to escape.