Chapter 6 - The Shove That Changed Everything
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Mrs. Eleanor aggressively pushed back her heavy wooden chair, the legs scraping loudly and violently against the hardwood floor. She stood up to her full height, her expensive silk blouse rustling, and glared at me with a look of pure, concentrated venom.
"You feel sick?" she mocked, taking a slow, deliberate step toward me. "You think you are the only woman in the world who has ever been pregnant? I am completely sick of supporting a freeloading, clumsy daughter-in-law who uses her condition as a constant excuse for her own blatant incompetence."
I took a small, terrified step back, my heart hammering wildly against my ribs like a trapped bird.
"I work full-time, too," I whispered defensively, the words slipping out of my mouth before I could stop them. "I was on my feet for twelve hours at the hospital today."
That was the absolute wrong thing to say. Defiance was strictly forbidden in their presence.
Mrs. Eleanor's eyes flashed with a dark, terrifying fury. Before I could even register her movement, she lunged forward. Her manicured hands struck my shoulders with a shocking amount of force, shoving me backward with everything she had.
I was entirely off balance. My heavy, swollen body stumbled backward helplessly. I tried to catch myself, my arms flailing wildly in the air, but my hospital slippers slid across the polished floor.
My lower spine struck the sharp, unyielding corner of the kitchen’s granite countertop.
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A sickening crack echoed in my ears. Pain—white-hot, blinding, and absolute—tore through my abdomen so violently that all the oxygen was instantly sucked out of my lungs.
My knees immediately buckled beneath me. I couldn't even scream. I collapsed onto the cold kitchen floor, my vision going completely black at the edges as the room spun violently out of control. The nightmare had just escalated into a tragedy.
