But they barely reacted.
I was certain they had heard me—my words weren't whispers. They rang through the sterile room, sharp and raw, yet neither of them met my eyes. Instead, they shifted uneasily, their gazes wandering anywhere but toward me. It was as if the truth hanging in the air was too heavy to touch, too dangerous to acknowledge.
Then my mother's lips trembled, and she spoke—barely above a whisper, but clear enough to shatter me completely.
"Why… why'd you have to survive?"
My world cracked apart in that instant.
The air vanished from my lungs. The steady beeping of the monitors grew deafening, like a mocking reminder that I was still alive when the people who had brought me into this world no longer wanted me here.
And that's when it struck me—not as a guess, but as an undeniable truth clawing at my chest. They had known about this.
They weren't horrified by Elena's confession because it wasn't hers alone. They were complicit.
They had approved.
