“You don’t get it, do you? She’s doing it on purpose—giving us the cold shoulder because she looks down on us country folk. Bet you didn’t know that!”
That was it. I couldn’t help but laugh out loud—not because I found it funny, but because I was so done.
Where did these people even come from?
They were masters at turning nothing into the most dramatic soap opera imaginable.
I turned and started heading upstairs, determined to ignore them. But then, out of nowhere, I felt a hard shove from behind. Before I knew it, I was falling.
The force sent me stumbling forward, my feet slipping out from under me as I tumbled onto the stairs.
Pain shot through my hands as they scraped against the rough edges, and my heart raced with panic. Instinctively, I curled in, shielding my belly. Thankfully, I managed to protect it just in time.
Behind me, the triumphant, gleeful laughter of a little boy echoed through the room.
Clutching my stomach, I struggled to steady myself and get back on my feet.
Right away, David rushed over in concern. He turned to his nephew, Ryan, and snapped, “What the hell are you doing? Don’t you know your aunt is pregnant?”
Ryan’s chubby face twisted into a smug grin, his squinty eyes narrowing until they nearly disappeared.
“I know. I did it on purpose,” he said, his tone so casual it made my blood boil.
David froze, clearly caught off guard by the boy’s brazen confession.
When he finally spoke, his voice was hesitant and weak, like he didn’t know how to handle the situation. “What you did is dangerous, Ryan. What if you hurt her? You can’t do that again, okay?”
But Ryan wasn’t done. He shrugged and added, “I read in a book that if a pregnant woman falls, she’ll have a miscarriage. I wanted to see if Elaine would have one.”
My head spun with rage. Without thinking, I slapped him across the face, the sharp sound slicing through the air and silencing the room. Then, fueled by anger, I kicked him in the stomach. He doubled over, clutching his belly, and started crying.
When I’d been shoved down the stairs, not one relative had moved to help me—not a single one.
But now?
Now they swarmed me like vultures, their outrage deafening.
“How could you do that? He’s just a child!” David's aunt said.
“Exactly! Did you have to hit the kid that hard? You’re heartless!” Linda, David's mom, added.