I watched from my bedroom window, jaw clenched. When I told Yuna, “Mom, he’s the one who broke my wrist last fall,” she paused. Then: “People change, sweetheart. Maybe he’s reaching out.”
He laughed—a hollow, startled sound. Then he saw her face. No softness. No pity. Just a mother who had remembered what she was protecting.
“Derek, you tried to poison my son. Now you’re trying to poison me. But I’m a gardener. I know the difference between growth and rot.” She picked up the pot and handed it back. “Take your pretty flower. And if you ever come near my family again, I’ll show you exactly how sharp a pruning shear can be.” my bully tries to corrupt my mother yuna
“Mom,” I said, voice raw. “Do you remember the scar on my ribs? He gave it to me with a locker door. Do you remember the week I didn’t talk? He told the whole school I was a schizophrenic because I wouldn’t lend him twenty dollars.”
The silence stretched. A cricket sang. Then Yuna reached over and touched the scar on my ribs—the one I’d hidden even from her until now. Her fingers traced it like braille. I watched from my bedroom window, jaw clenched
She stopped pruning.
That night, Yuna and I planted new irises. She didn’t apologize—she didn’t have to. She just said, “Next time, show me the scar sooner.” Maybe he’s reaching out
I felt the floor drop. He was rewriting history. My bruises, my terror, my sleepless nights—he was recasting them as my inability to forgive. And Yuna, my sweet, lonely mother, was drinking it in because he was offering her something she’d lost when Dad died: the feeling of being needed.