The Day My Daughter Celebrated Chapter 7

Stella ran away.

For three full days, no word.

Her phone was off, her social media accounts stopped updating.

The fans who'd been checking daily for updates shifted from curiosity to concern.

The hashtag #WhereIsWokeStellaСhen trended again.

Only I knew that the so-called "woke" persona had shattered beyond repair.

The house returned to dead silence.

David quietly helped me clean up the party's aftermath.

He asked nothing, just held me when I broke down emotionally, saying over and over.

"I'm here, Monica. It's all in the past."

I knew he was waiting for me to speak on my own terms.

That night, I told him everything.

The rainy night nineteen years ago, being dragged into an alley on my way home from work.

The despair and struggle after discovering I was pregnant.

And the decision to have Stella despite everyone's lack of understanding.

"I thought then that the child was innocent."

"I wanted to give her a normal life, a childhood where she didn't know the truth and could grow up happy."

"I thought I'd succeeded."

I buried my face in David's embrace, my whole body shaking with sobs.

"But I never imagined that the darkness I desperately tried to hide would be turned by her, in the cruelest way, into celebratory fireworks."

David tightened his arms around me.

"Monica, this isn't your fault."

He cupped my face, looking seriously into my eyes.

"You're the bravest, most extraordinary mother I've ever met."

"As for Stella... she needs time to process all this. She'll understand."

I shook my head.

What good would understanding do?

Those humiliating words, those mocking laughs, those voyeuristic stares—they'd already happened.

Some wounds, once inflicted, can never be erased.

On the fourth day, the police came to the door.

They said someone in a neighboring city had seen a girl matching Stella's description on a bridge, emotionally unstable.

My heart seized immediately.