The Stolen Life- My Mother Gave My Fiancé to Her Favorite Student novel Chapter 3

I ate a few bites listlessly, then headed to my room.

Behind me, I heard Mom’s furious ranting–disappointed beyond measure–and Lila’s quiet little comments

making things worse.

Jax walked in with a plate of fresh strawberries.

I ignored him.

“Elara, are you still mad at Lila? Not talking to her all day like this will only make you overthink.”

If this had been before, I would have screamed at the top of my lungs:

Should I not be mad?

She changed my college application without permission, stole my boyfriend, and Mom wouldn’t even let me

call the police or so much as raise my voice at her.

It wasn’t until I nearly got hit by stray bullets in the Middle Eastern conflict zones that I finally understood.

People who don’t care about you will turn every word you say into nothing but air.

I stayed silent.

Jax thought I was taking it out on him, so he kept explaining:

“I always knew Ms. Voss hated Willowbrook. You wanted to go to Havenswood to get away from her.”

“Lila didn’t want you two to fall out. She just… accidentally remembered your password and changed your

application for you.”

Right.

Her “kindness” had turned my original economics major at Havenswood into a journalism major at Westbrook State College, over two thousand miles away.

Jax rambled on:

“Elara, even if I’d gotten into Havenswood with you, I would have told you to change your major.”

I was so fed up I blurted out:

“Did you purposely fail your exams just so you could stay here and be with Lila?”

His voice cut off abruptly, like a duck that’s been choked silent.

He had no idea how I’d found out.

Because he’d never seen past Lila’s tough–but–innocent act to the manipulative person she really was–no

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innocent little lamb at all.

After college, when Lila no longer needed Mom’s financial support, she sent me a bunch of messages to get

a rise out of me.

She told me how Jax had went behind my back amusement parks, movie theaters, and the ocean park-

places I’d always wanted to go–behind my back.

In college, Jax had gotten his driver’s license and took her on weekend road trips.

When I called to check up on me, he’d lie through his teeth, using hotel curtains as an excuse.

Back then, I was drowning in the pain of triple betrayal.

I was trying to numb the pain amid the chaos of war zones.

I’d slapped myself, pulled out clumps of my hair, even cut my wrists with a razor…

My whole life, Mom had raised me with tough love and trapped me with guilt because she was a single

mother.

Lila made me realize I wasn’t loved by anyone–not even my only family member.

She’d mocked Jax for leaving me, saying it was the right choice.

That people like me didn’t deserve to be alive.

Mom had also sent a flood of vicious messages, saying she’d wasted over twenty years raising me.

That I hadn’t run away to her least favorite city just to escape one silly fight.

The only message Jax ever sent was three words: [I am sorry.]

I didn’t want to hear it.

I just had to keep running.

Drown the pain in the fear of facing death and the sorrow of watching displaced refugees.

I nearly died a few times from the shelling.

The worst time, I would have died there, far from home if someone hadn’t used the embassy to rescue me.

I thought about that, then glanced at my phone.

A new message sat there: [Elara, have you finished your residency transfer? I can have a helicopter pick you up anytime.]

I replied politely: [Three more days, Dad.]

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