My face flushed red under his grip; I couldn’t breathe.
I grabbed the soup bowl beside me and smashed it into his forehead.
Porcelain shards flew, nicking my face; blood streaked my eye, but my voice was cold as ice.
I stared him down. All of this was mine. If I chose to burn it down, so what?
“Ethan, after everything you’ve done, ruining you ten times over still wouldn’t be enough.”
“My baby was perfectly healthy. You used a fake prenatal report to make me terminate—just so Zoey could have her ‘artwork,’ right?”
“Wait and see. The thing you want most is the very thing you’re about to lose.”
Ethan sat there, blood running down his forehead, eyes wide.
“Claire! Don’t you dare!”
Before the words finished echoing, Zoey burst in sobbing.
Irritated, Ethan barked, “Stop crying! What happened?”
Startled by his tone, Zoey choked back her tears and glanced at me.
“Ethan… I—I don’t know who did it, but someone posted online that I took someone else’s spot when I got into school, and I… I—”
Ethan snapped his head toward me, ignoring the gash on his brow.
He grabbed me like a rag doll and threw me to the floor. “Claire! Are you trying to scorch the earth? What do you even gain from this?”