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Pretend Mother, Real Victim

EPISODE 9: A few weeks later, my due date finally arrived. But instead of rushing me to the hospital like any normal family would, they insisted I stay home to deliver. I was left to labor in pain with no proper care, for about ten minutes before I gave birth right there, in their house. It was their family doctor who delivered the baby. Barely an hour after giving birth, aunty’s husband walked in with a new gown and told me to get dressed, he was taking me out. According to him, it was his “thank you” gesture. Meanwhile, aunty stayed home, pretending to be the one who had just delivered a baby. The deception ran deep. When we returned from the outing, things took a darker turn. He didn’t take me home. Instead, he drove me to a hotel. An old woman he had hired was already there, to clean me up. After sometimes she left and he took over, saying he wanted to “take care of me himself.” Then he started with unsettling questions: “Do you like me?” “Am I the kind of man you can marry?” “You’re so beautiful…” He told me to close my eyes and before I knew it, he kissed me and asked if I liked it, 'I said no', he didn’t stop, he began to caress me, everything felt so strange, so wrong, yet I could not help myself and before I could process what was happening, he was on top of me. And it didn’t happen just once, that day, it happened three times. A few days later, he returned this time with gifts. And again, the same cycle repeated itself. Not long after, my mother called, asking me to send her money to take care of my younger siblings. I couldn’t believe it, I mean what kind of mother makes such a request from her daughter, knowing what she’s going through? As for aunty, she suddenly told me she had a dream. In it, an old woman warned her, “Your secret will soon be exposed if you're not careful.” She believed it had something to do with me, but I knew perhaps it was the phone I use in communicating with my friend. This time I couldn’t hold back any longer. I don’t know where the boldness came from, but I finally asked her directly if there was something she knew about my first pregnancy, because I had never slept with anyone before that. They had hacked my phone, monitoring every of my movement in the house. But I, being the smart girl I am, already number bought a secret phone I used to chat with my friends, one they didn’t know about. To be continued…

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