Chapter 1 - Claire
The house is mine. All mine. No roommates, no parents down the hall, no one telling me I'm doing it wrong. Just me, my laptop, my Wi-Fi router, and a porch that creaks in the most perfect way when I step outside with my morning coffee.
I stand there now, mug in both hands, wearing pajama shorts and an oversized T-shirt that says "Have You Tried Turning It Off and On Again?" across the front. The sun is barely up, painting everything gold and pink, and I can hear birds. Actual birds. Not car horns or sirens or the couple upstairs having another screaming match about whose turn it is to buy toilet paper.
Just birds.
I take a sip of coffee and let myself feel smug about it.
This is everything I wanted. The front porch, the quiet street, the neighbor who waves when she's getting her mail. Blackwater Falls is exactly the kind of small town I used to daydream about when I was stuck in my childhood bedroom listening to my parents argue about case files in the kitchen.
My phone buzzes in my pocket and I already know who it is before I look.
Mom: *We've booked tickets. Arriving Friday afternoon. Send your address again.*
No. No, no, no.
I stare at the message like maybe it'll change if I blink hard enough. It doesn't. The words just sit there, smug and inevitable.
They're coming here. To my house. My space. The one place I've managed to carve out in the world that's completely, entirely mine.
Me: *You don't have to visit. I'm fine. Everything's great.*
The reply is instant.
Mom: *Of course we're visiting. We haven't seen where you're living. Your father and I want to make sure you're safe.*
What she means is: *We want to see what kind of mistake you've made so we can fix it.*
I close my eyes and grip the coffee mug harder. The heat burns against my palms but I don't let go.
I moved here three months ago. Three months of freedom, of making my own choices, of eating cereal for dinner and not showering until noon if I don't feel like it. Three months of working my remote IT job in peace, of decorating my house exactly how I want it, of learning who I am when there's no one around to tell me I'm doing it wrong.
And now they're coming.
I can already see how it's going to go. My mother will walk through the door with her designer handbag and her perfectly tailored suit, and she'll look around my little rental house with that expression, the one that says she's disappointed but not surprised. My father will be right behind her, already running calculations on how much it would cost to move me back to the city, back into their orbit where they can manage me properly.
They'll criticize the neighborhood, the size of the house, my furniture, my job, my life. They'll offer again to pay for an apartment near them. Something nice. Something they approve of. Somewhere they can drop by whenever the mood strikes because, after all, they're just worried about me.
And when I say no (again), they'll look at each other with that look. The one that says: *When is she going to grow up and stop being so stubborn?*
Except I'm not being stubborn. I’m free.
I'm twenty-six years old and for the first time in my entire life, I'm not living under their roof or by their rules. I have my own space, my own routine, my own ridiculously small grocery budget because I won't take their money anymore. I put up curtains they'd hate, bright yellow with little bees on them. I bought a couch from Facebook Marketplace that has character, which is code for "one of the cushions sags." I painted my bedroom wall lavender because I wanted to and there was no one here to tell me it would hurt the resale value.
This house is mine and I don't want them here, picking it apart, trying to save me from a life I actually chose.
I need a plan.
I need something that will make them back off, that will prove I'm not their helpless little girl anymore. Something that shows I'm building a life here, a real life, and they need to let me live it.
I'm pacing the porch now, coffee sloshing dangerously close to the rim of the mug.
What do parents hate? What makes them realize their daughter is an adult who makes her own choices?
A boyfriend.
Not just any boyfriend. The wrong boyfriend. The kind of man they'd never approve of in a thousand years.
