Chapter 5
When I turned toward Hunter, I already knew the answer.
Still, some questions must be spoken so the soul can hear the truth clearly.
“Hunter… you’re letting her do this?”
His eyes were cold.
Not conflicted.
Not ashamed.
Cold.
He stepped closer, blocking the edge of the kitchen table where my dissertation folder lay.
“Stay home tomorrow and save yourself the embarrassment.”
There it was.
The purpose.
Not just cruelty.
Strategy.
If I did not defend, I would fail.
If I failed, he could say I was unstable.
Unprepared.
Dramatic.
If I stayed home, Barbara could say motherhood and marriage had finally humbled me, though I had no children and less marriage than a hostage arrangement.
I looked at the hair on the floor.
Then at the scissors in Barbara’s hand.
Then at Hunter.
My tears stopped first.
Not because I was no longer hurt.
Because anger arrived with a colder job to do.
Barbara reached for my hair again.
I caught her wrist.
Firm.
Steady.
She gasped as if I had attacked her.
I removed the scissors from her hand and placed them flat on the counter.
The metal made a clean sound against stone.
Hunter stepped forward.
“Don’t touch my mother.”
I looked at him.
“Don’t worry.”
“I’m done touching this family at all.”
Barbara’s face twisted.
“You ungrateful little girl.”
“I am thirty-two.”
“Then act like a wife.”
I straightened my blouse.
Wiped my cheeks once.
“You just gave me something worth defending.”
Hunter’s jaw moved.
He did not understand yet.
He thought I meant the dissertation.
I did.
But not only that.
I meant my work.
My body.
My name.
My right to enter a room without asking permission from a man who called sabotage protection.
I gathered my dissertation folder, laptop bag, backup slides, and phone.
Hunter moved toward the doorway.
Not aggressively.
Not visibly enough for a neighbor to call it force.
Just his body placed where he thought mine would hesitate.
It did not.
I stepped around him.
He blinked.
Because he had expected tears to make me smaller.
May you like
They had made me precise.
Read the full story 👉 Hunter admitted the goal was to make Selena miss her defense, and Selena finally stopped waiting for him to protect her.
