00:00I didn't touch the phone. I lay in the warehouse and thought of many things.
00:04I thought of when mom was still alive, when the four of us had been happy,
00:07and I had been the little princess everyone adored. I thought of chemotherapy wearing her
00:12down until she wasted away, and Richard coming home less and less. I thought of that woman
00:17sending photos of herself with Richard while mom was in the worst of her pain. I thought of the
00:21day she brought her daughter into our home to celebrate mom's final birthday dinner.
00:25Mom was trembling with rage. She had just come back from chemotherapy. She was already in
00:31unbearable pain. Then her heart gave out, and she never came back. That day Marcus held me and cried
00:37for a long time. He stroked my back and said, Vivian, don't be scared. You still have me.
00:44I won't let bad people hurt you. Less than a month later, Richard brought his mistress and her daughter
00:47into the house. At first, Marcus and I were united against them. But somewhere along the way,
00:54he changed. Maybe it was when Celeste offered him her only piece of candy with trembling hands,
00:59or when she sat crying on the path he always took, acting stubborn and brave. She had always been
01:05the weak, pitiful one, and I was always the reckless aggressor. When I confronted him, he sounded impatient.
01:13Mom had cancer. She was never going to get anywhere.
01:16How familiar. How cold. That was the exact excuse Richard had used countless times to defend himself
01:23and protect his mistress. And now Marcus could say it just as naturally. From that moment on,
01:28I had no family. And now, the person I had picked up with my own hands and treated like family
01:34had
01:34driven the blade into me again and again, for the sake of that mother and daughter. I looked at my
01:38broken limbs. Then at that filthy phone. In the end, I smiled. A life with nothing left but hatred and
01:45betrayal was so unbearably pointless. I never touched the phone. I just lay there for three days,
01:51until the very last moment.
