She didn’t argue. She stepped forward, closing the distance between us in a fraction of a second.
Before I could react, before my exhausted brain could even process her movement, Beatrice raised her hand and violently, brutally slapped me across my pale, exhausted face.
The sharp, stinging CRACK of her palm against my cheek sounded like a gunshot in the quiet room.
My head snapped to the side. A hot, blinding pain bloomed across my cheekbone. I gasped, a choked, ragged sound of pure shock, as tears of sheer, unadulterated humiliation sprang to my eyes. I instinctively curled my body around my baby to protect her from the physical violence.
I slowly turned my head to look at my husband. I waited for Mark to drop his phone, to jump out of his chair, to scream at his mother for hitting his wife hours after she gave birth to his child. I waited for him to protect us.
Mark finally looked up from his glowing screen. He looked at my red, stinging cheek. He looked at his mother, who was glaring at me triumphantly.
He let out a heavy, incredibly irritated sigh.
“Mom, please, keep your voice down, I’m in a ranked match,” Mark whined, completely ignoring the physical assault he had just witnessed. He turned his annoyed gaze to me. “Move to a regular room, Chloe. She’s right, this is a waste. Save the money so I can top up my game. I need to buy a new upgrade package to beat this level.”
He looked back down at his phone, his thumbs resuming their frantic tapping.
The world around me went completely, terrifyingly silent. The man I had promised to love and honor had just watched his mother violently assault me in a hospital bed, and his only reaction was to demand I downgrade my recovery room to fund his video game addiction.
