Mom, Don't Cry For Me

On the day when my parents took my sister abroad for a trip, I was sent to a reform institution.

There, I experienced hellish torture.

They fixed me on a chair for a photo shoot till the second I died.

My mom yelled angrily through the screen, "Violet! You're so bold! How dare you hang up on me!

"If you can't get rid of your bad habits, rot in there!"

Little did she know, I had already died at that time...

——

My fifty-day reform period was about to end.

But I was forever stuck in this hellish institution.

After I died, my soul floated in midair as I watched them fix my body on a chair and make a video call to my mom.

In the video, I lowered my head with my eyes slightly opened and my fingertips holding a lit cigarette.

I looked no different from a rebellious teenager.

I wouldn't even let my mom see my face.

The coach looked guilty. "Don't blame her. We aren't good enough to teach her to be better."

My mom smiled awkwardly and thanked him for teaching me patiently.

Then she turned to me, looking disgusted.

She angrily shouted through the screen, "Violet, don't think anyone will think you're cool with you behaving like this.

"You'll only make people feel disgusted. If you can't get rid of your bad habits, just stay in there for the rest of your life! Forget about going to college. If you cause trouble someday, you'll be toast!"

She hung up the video call without any hesitation.

I felt bitter and cried uncontrollably, my tears falling to the floor.

I'm toast already.

I'm dead, aren't I?

I died because my family was so indifferent to me.

I died because this reform institution treated me as an animal.

I slumped to the floor from the chair.

The coach turned cruel again. He sealed and packed my body and buried it on the desolate mountain behind the institution's back door.

My soul began to wander on the streets.

Unconsciously, I returned home.

I saw my parents and my sister, Wendy Buckley, who had just returned home with suitcases in their hands.