Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I let out a slow, steady breath and stood up to look around.

This was the three-bedroom apartment I lived in before the divorce, shared among four people: my daughter, my husband, my mother-in-law, and me.

Right now, Chloe was at school, my husband was away on a business trip, and my mother-in-law was out line dancing at the park.

The place was modest.

My mother-in-law had one bedroom, Chloe had another, and the third room was crammed with Chloe's piano and study desk.

My husband, Garrett, was always busy traveling for work and rarely stayed home.

Whenever he returned, he slept in his mother's room, while his mother moved into Chloe's room to share the master bed.

Meanwhile, I slept on a pull-out sofa in the living room.

Folded into a couch by day and pulled into a bed by night, it made me look like an unwelcome guest in my own home.

My entire personal space had been reduced to a single small cupboard in the piano room.

Even then, Chloe constantly complained that my few belongings took up too much room and threatened to throw my clothes in the trash.

This apartment was bought during our marriage, and after Garrett's affair, it should have been mine by law.

Yet Garrett and his mistress were cunning, and my mother-in-law was always fanning the flames.

Back then, desperate to secure custody of my daughter, I gave up the property, left empty-handed, and moved into a rundown rental near her school.

Chloe never stopped blaming me for it.

She insisted the apartment rightfully belonged to Garrett and cursed me for dragging her into poverty instead of leaving alone.

She repeatedly accused me of pocketing child support and being stingy with her allowance.

The truth was, Garrett never paid a single penny of child support.

She assumed I kept her from seeing Garrett because I was scared he would take her away.

The reality was, I simply wanted to shield her from the truth: Garrett and his mistress were building their dream life together, eagerly expecting the baby boy he had always craved, with zero regard for her.

Since childhood, she believed Garrett was the best father in the world, and she loved her grandmother just as blindly.

She had no idea that Garrett and his mother had despised her from the day she was born, furious that I had given birth to a daughter instead of a son to carry on their family name.

Kindness met with malice.

I gave up half my life for her, only to be branded a monster.

It was both tragic and pathetic.

Thankfully, I had been given a second chance.

This time, I was going to live life on my own terms.

I called the local music store to cancel my payment plan and arranged to sell the new piano at a discount.

In my previous life, every dime of my hard-earned savings had gone toward buying that instrument.

Chloe's old upright piano was worn out and constantly slipped out of tune no matter how many times it was serviced.

With the national competition only six months away, I couldn't bear to let a faulty instrument ruin her musical prospects.

And how did she repay me?

She took a wrench to the gift I had spent months scraping together to buy.

Since she hated it so much, I would take it back.

Just then, the front door clicked open, and Chloe walked in with her backpack slung over one shoulder.

She had a lovesick grin on her face, cooing into her phone, "I'm home now, babe. Talk to you later, okay?"

The moment she spotted me, her smile vanished instantly.

Her eyes filled with pure disgust, as if she had just stepped on roadkill.

Seeing me standing near the piano room, she snapped, "What the hell are you doing in there, old woman? Planning to hover over me while I practice again? You make me sick!"

"I told you a million times, I hate playing the piano! I don't want to do it! You're the one forcing me to touch that stupid thing!"

"Other parents are totally chill. Why can't you be normal? Other kids get to watch TV, read novels, and play video games after school. You force me to practice every day, and if I play games at night, you nag me to go to bed!"

Even though I had made up my mind to let her go, her words still stung like needles against my chest.

I still vividly remembered the starry-eyed look on her face when she was little, begging me to let her become a concert pianist.

Garrett had refused to waste money on her, and my mother-in-law called her a useless money pit.

I was the only one who stood up against the entire family, working extra hours to pay for her lessons just to help her chase that dream.

Now she was claiming she never liked it? Claiming I forced her?

I only asked her to practice for an hour each evening to keep her fingers nimble for the national competition. Was that stripping away her freedom?

Pushing her to practice so she could get into a top university―was that not for her own future?

She stayed up playing games until two in the morning when she had school at six, and telling her to rest was my crime?

Standing there now, the anger in my heart faded, replaced by chilling indifference.

I spoke in a flat voice. "You're right. I won't force you to play the piano ever again."