6
Jake’s mom’s slap wasn’t for my face or my
son’s face.
She got out of her car, focused on her target,
and swung her arm at Chloe’s face, shouting,
“Do you have the nerve to come back to my
son?”
This dramatic scene left both Jake and me
momentarily speechless.
“If you hadn’t taken my money back then, I
might have even said you were better than
those gold diggers. How can you come back
after disappearing for six years to cause
trouble for my son?”
Jake’s mom protected her son, as if Chloe
had committed some unforgivable crime.
Jake immediately recognized a word –
money.
His face pale, he asked, “Mom, what are you talking about?”
Jake’s mom’s face fell.
Chloe looked like she was the victim, “You
think that’s why we broke up? It’s because
your mom came to threaten me and paid me
<
Jake’s eyelashes trembled violently, his voice
faltering, “Mom, is that t–true? Why?”
Jake’s mom looked down, defeated. “If she
were someone else’s daughter, I’d let it go.”
Chloe was the daughter of the couple who
had kidnapped Jake.
When his mom saw Chloe, she was terrified.
They looked so alike. Every time she saw her,
she was reminded of the four years of hell
Jake had gone through.
But Jake had forgotten.
After being found, he developed PTSD. He
didn’t remember what the people who hurt
him looked like.
<
To protect her son from being hurt again, she
contacted Chloe and paid her $800,000 to
stay far, far away from Jake.
Chloe agreed without hesitation.
She said that chasing Jake was about his
family’s money anyway. Now that she’d got it,
she didn’t need to stay hung up on Jake.
She took the money and quickly moved on,
emigrating overseas.
The day Jake confessed to me, was the day
she was getting married.
The day we got married was six months after
she got divorced.
Everything clicked into place.
<
That day, Jake got in his car, dazed, and
drove away without knowing where he was
going.
Before leaving, he told us, “Mom, Sunny, I
need to be alone, don’t worry about me.”
Jake’s mom went up to Chloe and, looking
down at her, warned her, “If you ever harass
my son again, I will, as a mother, do whatever
it takes to kill you.”
Then she turned to me, sincerely apologizing,
“I’m sorry. I made you suffer so much for
Jake.”
Back then, Jake was deep in the pain of
heartbreak. One day she found his anxiety
medication, went back to her room and cried
all night. She considered all her options, and
<
She said I was the first person who had
gotten Jake to speak, that I was her last
hope.
And sure enough, when Jake picked me up
from college, he went home and told his
mom, “That little brat has really grown up.”
She asked him if he remembered me teasing
him when we were little?
He thought about it and suddenly smiled, “I
remember.”
“Sunny, whether you believe it or not, he likes
you.”
Does he like me?
<
Maybe.
But all my feelings for him had disappeared in
just a few days.
It’s laughable. We rarely fought, he was good
at saying sorry and I loved him enough.
Even after that difficult birth, when I was so
upset that I went home to my mom for a
couple of weeks, all Jake had to do was pick
a peach blossom by the side of the road,
place it in the vase on my nightstand, kiss my cheek and my anger would disappear.
But in those few days, I saw his love for Chloe. Pure, genuine, and desperate.
What he had for me was just a distraction, an acceptance of defeat after losing the person
