My mother threatens to jump off a building in front of me three times.

The first time is when I fill out my college application. She stands on the rooftop and forces me to choose a local college. I give in, and with a 1550 SAT score, I end up attending a second-tier local college.

The second time is after I graduate and go to Brayton for work. She stands on top of my company building and forces me to quit. I return to my hometown and take a gas station job she finds for me, earning 7.50 dollars per hour.

The third time, she stands on a rooftop again and forces me to marry a man I have only met once but whom she is very satisfied with. I obey and marry him, only to suffer domestic violence and miscarry.

In the end, I can no longer take it and jump off a building myself.

When I open my eyes again, my mother is gritting her teeth as she climbs onto the rooftop.

"If you dare apply to a Privy League college out of town, I will jump from here!"

I give her one glance before turning around and walking away. "Go ahead. Don't waste my time."

Mom's expression froze.

The look on her face, one of anger and disbelief, reminded me of the first thing she said to me when she visited me at the hospital after my miscarriage in my previous life.

"Who told you not to listen to me? If only you'd had a child with him earlier to tie him down, do you think your husband would have hit you in the first place?"

It was at that moment that I suddenly understood that the many times I'd compromised my life over and over again had already completely ruined me.

"What… What did you just say?"

Her voice trembled with rage. I simply turned and walked toward the stairwell.

"I said, go ahead and jump if you want to. I'm in a hurry. College applications are already open, and I need to go back and finish mine."

"Suzanne Gibson!" Mom shrieked. "Stop right there! You ungrateful brat! Are you really trying to kill me?"

I stopped walking and turned to look at her. "Mom, you're the one who climbed up here yourself to jump. What's that got to do with me?"

Then, I turned and walked off the top floor without looking back.

When I got home, I locked myself in my study, logged into the college application system, and felt my fingers trembling.

I'd scored 1550 on my SATs, placing me amongst the top 1% in my state.

This time, I wasn't going to enroll in a regular, local college. Instead, I racked my memory and applied for several Privy League colleges that were out of state.

I ticked the boxes for every major at every college. I was desperate to get in, no matter what. As I hit the "submit" button, I felt my nose stinging, and I almost cried.

This was the first time I'd made a choice for my own life.

Just as I exited the system, the study door was slammed wide open with a loud bang.

Mom stood in the doorway, her eyes red and swollen and her hair disheveled. She must have run down from the roof, because her chest was still heaving.

"You—"

She gasped as her gaze fixed on my laptop screen.

"You've already submitted your applications?"

I nodded and turned off the laptop.

"Let me see!" She rushed over at once, trying to get to the laptop from me.

I stepped in and shielded it from her. "I've already submitted them, Mom."

"I said, show it to me!" she said in a shrill voice on the verge of hysteria. When I didn't move, she turned on the computer instead.

The screen lit up, but it required a password to unlock.

Mom glared at me and seethed, "What is the password?"

"I'll never tell you," I said. "The applications are submitted. It can't be changed anymore."

"Where did you apply?" she demanded, her voice shaking. "Did you apply for a college out of state? You did, didn't you!"

I didn't answer her. She took my silence as confirmation.

Suddenly, she let out a deranged scream, snatched my keyboard, and smashed it violently onto the floor.

Broken plastic pieces flew everywhere, and a few keys even popped out and rolled into a corner.

"Suzanne Gibson! Are you trying to give me a heart attack?" she wailed, tears streaming down her face. "I told you to apply to a local college! Did you not understand a word I said?

"Did you think I had it easy raising you all by myself? And now, you think you're too good to stay at home with me? Did you really think you could leave now that you're all grown up?

"What are you going to do next, huh? First, you enroll in a college out of state, then you work out of state, then you marry out of state!"

Mom continued screaming, "You're going to stop caring about me too! I'm your mother! You're just the same as that damn father of yours! You just want to abandon me!"

She then collapsed onto the floor, pounding her fist against it, crying and screaming her heart out.

This scene had happened countless times in my past life.

Every time I resisted her, even a little, she would throw a huge tantrum and lament how hard her life had been and how ungrateful and disrespectful I was to her.

I used to believe that I was really in the wrong and that I had let her down, right up until I finally threw myself off the building in my previous life.

"Mom," I said, interrupting her tirade. "I never said that I was going to stop caring about you."

She looked up at me, teary-eyed, grasping onto the last sliver of hope.

"Then withdraw your applications and reapply to a local college! You still have three days to cancel them!

"Just apply to a local teacher's college here and become a teacher after your graduation. Don't you see how stable that job is? And I'll always be able to see you often—"

"I'm not changing anything," I said, my voice calm but firm. "Don't even think about interfering with my college applications."

She froze, clearly not expecting me to refuse her so directly.

I picked up my laptop, walked around her slumped body on the floor, and went into my bedroom, locking the door behind me.

She continued to cry and wail outside.

Soon after, I heard her on the phone. She called up every single relative of hers and sobbed uncontrollably to them, telling them how much trouble I was causing her and how hard her life had been because of me.

I couldn't be bothered to listen to her. I just went into the laptop settings and changed my simple birthday password into a complex string of uppercase and lowercase letters and symbols instead.

Then, I leaned back against the headboard, touching the cold laptop case as I silently vowed that I was never going to compromise for anyone in this life anymore.

…

I slept very soundly. However, I was plagued by nightmares. It must have been because of the trauma and PTSD from jumping off the building in my previous life.

My nightmares were filled with fragments of my previous life.

I recalled how my fingers were cracking from the cold while filling up a car at the gas station in winter, how my drunk husband slapped me in the face again and again at home, and how Mom continued yelling at me at my in-laws' house, saying that it wasn't a big deal that my husband slapped me and that I should just get over it.

I woke up with a start, my forehead covered in cold sweat.

The bedroom light was off, and only the faint glow of the laptop screen illuminated the room.

I thought I heard the soft tapping of keys. Someone was sitting at my desk, trying to unlock my laptop.

When they heard that I was awake, the bedroom light was suddenly turned on, blinding me. Before I could react, however, Mom grabbed the laptop and flung it angrily onto my bed.

She was furious at being defied, pointing at me and screaming, "You changed the password, didn't you? What is that supposed to mean? You're treating me like some thief in the night now?"

A surge of anger welled up inside me, but I felt utterly powerless when I met her gaze.

I had expected this.

For the past 17 years, she could always come into my room and go as she wished. She could log into my phone and check it whenever she wanted. I was also obligated to tell her the passwords to all my devices, all the time.

I sat up in bed and pulled the laptop toward me, saying calmly, "I said that I'll make my own decision about my college applications. This is my laptop. You have no right to look through it."

"I am your mother! What right do you have to hide things from me!"

Her face was as red as a tomato, and her voice was sharp and shrill.

"Would I ever try to harm you? I just want to see which college you applied to! I'm doing this all for your own good!

"What's the point of a young woman going to study at a college so far away from home? Just enroll in a local college! I'll get you a stable and cushy job once you've graduated, and find you a good husband after that so you can settle down. Isn't that better than you drifting around in the wild?"

I had heard those words my entire life. Those were also the exact words that had dragged me right into hell in my previous life.

"Enough!"

My voice wasn't loud, but it stopped her abruptly.

I then walked to the desk and picked up the penknife that was on it. I didn't point it at her. I just held it in my hand.

The cold handle pressed against the center of my palm.

"You said that I was pushing you to your death if I didn't apply to a local college. But did you ever think about me?"

Mom opened her mouth, but no words came out.

"I scored a 1550 on my SATs, and I'm in the top 1% of scorers in the state. I could go to the best university in Brayton and study the major that I wanted to study the most.

"And yet, you insisted that I stay here to go to a low-tier local college that I don't even want. That's not for my own good, Mom. You're just ruining my future. I think you are the one who's trying to push me to my death instead."

The moment those words left my mouth, Mom's expression went blank. It was as if she truly saw me for the very first time.

She realized for once that her daughter, who used to be extremely obedient toward her, harbored such deep resentment against her.

Then, she exploded.

"Me? Pushing you to your death? Do you even have a conscience, Suzanne Gibson? I am the one who fed you, clothed you, and sacrificed everything for you!

"And now, you're telling me that I'm the one pushing you instead? Fine! Then I'll just kill myself right now! You'll be happier when I'm dead anyway, won't you?"

She wailed and screamed loudly as she rushed toward the balcony in an exaggerated frenzy.

But I knew that she wouldn't actually jump. This was just her most effective tactic to force me to give in.

When she saw that I didn't move a muscle, she screamed and cried even louder than before.

Soon, there was a loud knock on the door from our next-door neighbor, and another neighbor opposite our unit also opened their windows and yelled angrily at us.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, yelling and screaming in the middle of the night? Are you going to let us sleep in peace or not? I'm going to call the police on you!"

Mom's cries then died in her throat. She froze on the balcony, not knowing whether to go out or return. Her face turned red, then pale, then red again.

Finally, she glared fiercely at me and rushed back into her own room, slamming the door heavily behind her.

The apartment was finally peaceful again. But I knew that the fight was far from over.

The next morning, Mom was already gone by the time I woke up. I didn't care and washed up before leaving the apartment to find myself a part-time job.

I would need money to go to college. Although I got a scholarship to cover my tuition fees, I still didn't want to have to rely on Mom for my living expenses.

Most importantly, I needed to have a backup plan.

By the time I got back home, it was already 5:30 pm. I went to my bedroom and pushed the door open.

My laptop was missing.

"Where's my laptop?"

"Oh, that?" Mom casually continued prepping the ingredients for dinner as she said, "I accidentally spilled some water on it today, so I brought it to the repair shop. The technician said that the laptop had to be checked out, and it would take a couple of days."

I felt my heart drop to the bottom of my stomach. I had a bad feeling about this.

I didn't bother arguing with her and immediately went back into my bedroom, taking out my phone and trying to log into the college application system.

I keyed in my password, and a line of bright red text appeared on the screen.

"Password incorrect. Try again."

I keyed the password in three times in a row, but they were all incorrect.

My hands were trembling.

I tried my best to remain calm and went back out of the bedroom.

I walked up to her with my phone, held the screen in front of her eyes, and suppressed my anger as I asked, "What's going on? What have you been doing with my laptop?"

Mom turned off the tap and flicked the water off her hands. Then, she turned around, wiped her hands on her apron, and looked at me with an air of self-righteousness.

"Since choosing a college is such a huge deal, of course I had to help you with it.

"You're still young and don't know anything about colleges. What's the point of enrolling in a college just for its reputation? You have to look at the majors that they're offering and the job prospects instead!

"Well, I used one of my connections today and spent 10,000 dollars to hire an experienced teacher to help you look at colleges and choose your major for you. And they're all local teacher training colleges too, with all graduates guaranteed to be teachers afterward. Isn't that just great?

"I've already withdrawn all of your other applications for you, so you don't even need to worry about it anymore."

10,000 dollars? She really was willing to go that far to stop me from leaving her.

My voice was trembling with anger. "Who gave you the right to withdraw my applications? Did I even ask you for any help with it? Cancel those applications and change them back! Tell me the password now!"

Upon hearing this, she immediately put on that dramatic, exaggerated act again, like she was about to kill herself, and screamed at me.