21
Michelle
I slid down my door,my back hitting the wood with a dull thud, and didn’t even bother wiping the tears as they tracked down my cheeks. The weight of the last twenty-four hours pressed hard against my chest, like a vice tightening with every breath I tried to take. The look on Brooks' face when I lied to him, when I told him there was someone else, shattered the last part of me that had dared to hope I could have a happy life.
It was foolish. People in my family didn’t get love or happiness. My parents had made sure of that.
My apartment was a disaster from this morning—clothes thrown around from my hasty attempt to pack, my laptop half-open on the couch, and worst of all, the Post-it notes lined up on my counter, taunting me with their daily countdown.
Five days left.
Four days left.
Like I had twenty-fucking-thousand dollars to my name.
They were fools if they thought I could just pull that amount out of thin air. But they weren’t threatening me anymore, were they? No, they had made their intentions clear—the pictures of Brooks and Logan walking into the nursing home had been proof of that.
My father was watching them. Tracking them. That meant he was serious.
A fresh wave of nausea hit me, and I wrapped my arms around my knees, pressing my forehead to them, trying to breathe through the panic.
My plan had backfired. Royally. Brooks was supposed to stay away, to be scarce for a week, giving me time to figure out a plan. But he had ruined it. Goddamn it, he had ruined it. Now, my father knew he was important to me. He knew I cared. And that gave him leverage.
I had left Brooks no choice but to believe the worst of me. I had hurt him on purpose, made him think I was sleeping with someone else. It was cruel, but it was the only way. If he had any reason to push back, to fight for us, he would only be putting himself and his mom in danger.
But he believed it.
So easily.
That was the part that stung. That was the part that had my stomach in knots, had my hands trembling. He had just accepted it. He thought I was capable of hurting him that way. After everything, after opening myself up to him, after showing him pieces of me no one else had seen, he still thought I was capable of just... walking away.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to tell him the truth.
I wanted to beg him to trust me, even if I couldn’t explain why.
But I couldn’t.
Instead, I let out a choked sob, my body rattling with the force of it. These weren’t just a few tears; this was gut-wrenching, full-body, hopeless crying. My father had always been able to make me feel small, to remind me that no matter how much I tried to build a life away from him, he would always find a way back in.
I had homework I wouldn’t complete, a hole in my chest where Brooks belonged, and no way to get the money my father was demanding. It was a new rock bottom.
The last time I had felt this low, this trapped, was when Victor had robbed me blind, when I had come home to find my drawers emptied, my clothes dumped onto the floor, my money gone, my sense of security shattered. When I had called my mother, desperate for even the smallest ounce of comfort, only to hear her laugh on the other end of the line.
"He’s your brother, Michelle. What do you expect?"
She had called me dramatic for crying over the last of my rent money being stolen, like it wasn’t a big deal. Like it wasn’t my entire world crumbling down around me. And now, here I was again. Except this time, it wasn’t just me they were after.
It was Brooks.
The air in my apartment felt thick, suffocating, dangerous. The place that had once been mine, my safe space, was now tainted.
I had tried to ignore the small things. The Post-it notes left on my door, the figures lingering outside my job, the way the air in my place felt heavier every time I walked through the door.
But then I came home from clinicals, exhausted, ready to collapse, and I saw it.
The picture. Sitting dead center on my kitchen counter.
