"Whitney, come out. I need to talk to you!
"Whitney, did you hear me?"
He called out several times, but only silence answered him.
A deathly silence.
The warmth that once filled the home was gone.
"Whitney, I'm hungry! Aren't you going to come out and cook?
"Is it worth it for such a trivial matter?"
I had been raised to follow the traditional roles of supporting my husband and raising children. So, after marriage, I became a housewife, taking on all the household chores.
Brian had gotten used to treating me like a maid, expecting me to serve him.
"Don't be ungrateful. If you don't come out, I'll lose my temper."
The house remained deathly silent.
Brian angrily pushed open the bedroom door, only to find it empty.
After searching around, he found Lily lying motionless on the bed.
"Lily, where's your mom?
"You're at home; can't you talk? Are you mute now?
"Your mom is like this, and now you are too. You're both worthless."
Lily had been crying in bed for the past seven days, soaking her pillow and causing her face to swell.
She no longer had the strength to argue against her father's insults.
At that moment, Winnie hurriedly rushed into the house.
Was she so eager to take my place that she didn't care about my presence and had followed him home?
"Brian, something happened!"
"What happened?"
"I was going to discuss a project today, but I realized my ID card was stolen."
"Who stole it? How could this happen?"
Winnie quickly handed over a surveillance video.
"It's all my fault. I upset Whitney. Otherwise, she, she..."
I was so angry.
I had brought this project to the company.
Now Winnie was taking all the credit.
Even more ridiculously, she knew she wasn't qualified to meet the project's client, so she fabricated a lie about me stealing her ID card.
Indeed, she hadn't explicitly said I stole it, but her words clearly pointed the blame at me.
Brian barely glanced at the video before angrily throwing the phone to the ground.
"That bitch, not helping me is one thing, but doing this!
"Winnie, don't worry. I'll get to the bottom of this."
I also caught a glimpse of the video.
The person stealing wore a similar outfit to mine but had a completely different physique.
Brian didn't even want to look closely; he just outright accused me.
Finally, Lily couldn't stand it any longer. "This isn't my mom's doing. Get out, all of you."