Exposing My Stepmother

"My stepmother, Mary, hated me to the bone.All because when I was little, I went to a classmate’s house to play and forgot to close the courtyard gate. Her son ran onto the road and was hit to death by a car.My father loved my younger brother the most. After learning what happened, he was heartbroken.“Were you jealous of your brother? That’s why you deliberately left the gate open?”I desperately explained that I had closed the gate, but Dad didn’t believe me. He locked me in the basement and raised me like a dog for the rest of my life.Until one day, when Dad went on a business trip, Mary didn’t give me any food for three days.Starving, I crawled upstairs to the kitchen to look for something to eat.That was when I saw Mary sitting on a man’s lap, saying softly, “If you hadn’t forgotten to close the gate back then, I wouldn’t be living in fear every day of my husband finding out… We’re the ones who killed Ethan.”Only then did I understand that I wasn’t the one who had forgotten to close the gate and caused my brother to run outside, but my stepmother’s lover.Just as I was about to sneak back to the basement, my stepmother noticed me.“What did you hear? No! I can’t let your father find out that I killed our own son!”In a panic, she grabbed me and threw me down the stairs, killing me on the spot.When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day the car hit my brother.I blinked my innocent, childlike eyes and pointed upstairs, speaking in a soft, baby voice, “Dad, I closed the gate. It was the man in Mom’s bedroom who didn’t!”"