The Day My Daughter Celebrated Chapter 6

Time seemed to stop.

The living room fell deathly silent.

Stella's pupils contracted sharply. Her hands holding those papers began trembling uncontrollably.

She flipped through them one by one.

Case filing notice. Injury assessment report. And finally, the verdict.

Every word was like a red-hot iron, burning into her eyes.

That name—Mark Stevens—that stranger, that criminal, was the man she'd been glorifying, who had "given her life."

That date was the "Joy Day" she'd been celebrating so elaborately.

"No..." Her lips moved, the sound as light as a feather.

"That's impossible..."

She looked up at me, her eyes filled with extreme terror and confusion.

The "woke" persona she'd been so proud of, the entire world she'd constructed, collapsed in that moment.

The "followers" who'd come to the party exchanged glances, their expressions shifting from excited spectators to embarrassed uncertainty.

Some began quietly slipping toward the door.

David walked to my side, gently gripping my shoulder, giving me silent strength.

Stella's gaze moved from my face to David's, then back to the verdict.

Suddenly, as if all her strength had been drained, she staggered backward several steps and knocked over the champagne tower behind her.

CRASH.

Glasses shattered, champagne pooling across the floor.

She collapsed among the broken glass and liquid, but felt no pain.

She just stared at the documents in her hands, repeating over and over.

"This isn't real... this can't be real..."

I looked at her coldly.

Watching everything she'd been so proud of transform into the sharpest blade aimed at herself.

No sympathy. No pity.

My heart had long ago become a wasteland through countless linguistic tortures of "Joy Day."

Finally, she looked up, tears and makeup mixing on her face in a miserable mess.

"Mom..."

She reached toward me, as if trying to grasp something.

I stepped back, avoiding her.

Her hand froze in midair.

Despair instantly flooded her eyes.

She screamed, threw down the documents, and ran out of the house like a madwoman.