When I Scored My Mom Below ZeroChapter 3

That evening, I pushed open the front door and smelled the familiar aroma of food.

The living room glowed with warm yellow light. Mom sat at the dining table with a salad and pizza in front of her.

I changed my shoes very quietly, trying to hide my swollen right cheek and the blood traces at the corner of my mouth in the shadows.

But the moment I moved, Mom looked up.

"You're back?"

Her voice was still stern, but carried a trace of barely perceptible concern.

"Does your face still hurt?"

I lowered my eyes, shook my head, and sat down at the other end of the table, taking small bites of food.

Each bite was torture. Every chew pulled at my facial muscles.

It hurt so much.

I just swallowed the food whole instead.

Suddenly, Mom put down her fork and knife and walked over.

My body instinctively stiffened, the muscles in my back tensing.

But she just knelt down beside me, reached out her hand, and with cool fingertips, lightly touched my burning, badly swollen cheek.

I flinched like I'd been electrocuted.

Her fingers paused, and she sighed deeply:

"Nina, it hasn't been easy for Mom to raise you alone."

As she spoke, her eyes gradually reddened.

Shedding the daytime armor of a homeroom teacher, she became a struggling single mother.

"Mom's a homeroom teacher managing over fifty kids. Without authority, I can't function. Discipline falls apart, grades drop, the principal comes after me, parents complain about me."

"You're Mom's daughter. If you perform the best, behave the most properly, excel the most, only then will the other students respect me, fear me. Mom needs to establish authority."

Her rough fingers caressed the corner of my eye.

That area was dry.

I hadn't cried.

I just looked at her slightly red eyes, at that old house dress washed until it was faded and white.

Something inside my heart seemed to break open.

After a long while, I heard my own dry voice:

"Today... Wendy told me I'm just a punching bag, that you don't see me as your daughter at all."

Mom's hand froze.

The sadness and vulnerability on her face receded like a tide, replaced by an offended severity.

"What nonsense are you talking about?!"

Mom's voice suddenly rose, the caring mother image instantly swept away:

"You must have said something provocative to Wendy first. Even if you're jealous of her, you shouldn't lie!"

I closed my eyes, but couldn't help opening my mouth to sneer:

"What am I jealous of? Her bad grades? Her absent mother?"

"Slap!"

A vicious slap rang out.

I was struck so hard my head whipped to the side.

My already swollen right cheek swelled even higher. For a moment, my right ear seemed to go deaf.

"How can you talk like that? Such vicious words, I can't believe they came from my own daughter's mouth!"

"Own daughter..."

I repeated the words in a murmur, suddenly finding it absurdly funny, almost wanting to laugh.

"So I deserve to be beaten the hardest? Deserve to have no dignity?"

"You!"

Mom's chest heaved with anger, her pointing finger trembling.

"You're so ungrateful! I've worked so hard..."

I expertly tuned out her tearful complaints.

Once, these words could instantly soften my heart, make me think Mom had it so hard.

But today, those words passed through that hole like wind, leaving no trace.

For my own good—so she had to slap my face swollen, had to stab my mouth with needles.

So "for my own good" was this kind of bone-scraping, dignity-crushing pain.

After she finished scolding, she wiped her face, stood up, and returned to that exhausted calm, as if her earlier rage was just my imagination:

"Alright, hurry up and eat. You need to get up early tomorrow."

I lowered my head and continued eating the pizza that had long gone cold.

Under the table, my fingers curled, rubbing the miniature notebook hidden in my sleeve.

Soon.

I said to myself in my heart.