“Don’t be offended,” she said, covering her nose dramatically. “I’m just trying to wash off the prison energy.”
For a second, nobody moved.
Nobody laughed.
Nobody defended me either.
Not my mother.
Not my father, who sat on the couch staring at the television.
Not Ryan, who stood near the hallway with his arms crossed, looking everywhere except at me.
The alcohol dripped from my chin.
I wiped my face with the back of my hand.
Then I stepped inside.
The house smelled the same.
Coffee.
Old wood.
Laundry detergent.
My mother’s lavender candles.
That almost broke me more than Vanessa’s cruelty. Because some things had stayed exactly the same, while everything that mattered had been destroyed.
I walked toward the hallway without asking permission.
Straight to my old bedroom.
The room I had pictured every night behind bars.
I had imagined my old quilt. My books stacked near the window. My photographs taped to the mirror. The tiny crack in the ceiling shaped like a lightning bolt. The shoebox under the bed where I kept letters, birthday cards, and stupid little memories I thought would always belong to me.
But when I opened the door, my heart sank.
My bedroom was gone.
Not changed.
Gone.
Boxes filled the corners. Broken kitchen appliances leaned against the wall. Trash bags were piled on the floor. Baby clothes sat in clear plastic bins. A folded crib leaned against my old dresser, which had been scratched and pushed aside like junk.
My photographs were gone.
My books were gone.
My letters, journals, clothes, keepsakes, everything that had made that room mine—gone.
For two years, I had survived by remembering this room.
And they had turned it into storage.
“Where are my things?” I whispered.
My father did not even get up from the couch.
“Vanessa’s pregnant,” he muttered. “She needs the room for the baby.”
I turned to him slowly.
“My things,” I repeated. “Where are they?”
He shrugged.
“Your old stuff was junk anyway.”
Junk.
My childhood was junk.
My memories were junk.
The life I had left behind so Ryan could keep his was junk.
I looked at my mother, waiting for her to correct him.
She avoided my eyes.
Vanessa rubbed her belly and sighed like I was being difficult.
“We had to make space. You can’t expect everyone’s life to stay frozen just because you were away.”
Away.
As if I had been on vacation.
As if I had taken a long trip instead of sleeping behind locked doors while women screamed through the night and guards counted us like inventory.
I swallowed hard.
“And where exactly am I supposed to sleep?”
My mother walked into the kitchen and opened her purse.
For one fragile second, I thought she was going to hand me a key.
Maybe to another room.
Maybe to an apartment.
Maybe to some place they had prepared.
Instead, she placed two five-hundred-dollar bills on the counter.
A thousand dollars.
Payment for two years.
But then, as if even that was too generous, Vanessa snatched one bill back.
“She doesn’t need that much,” she said coldly. “We have baby expenses.”
My mother hesitated.
Then she let Vanessa keep it.
My father pulled out another crumpled bill from his wallet and placed it beside the remaining five hundred.
Then Ryan added nothing.
When I counted it with my eyes, there were only two hundred dollars left on the counter.
My mother pushed the money toward me.
“You’re an adult now,” she said. “Find a motel.”
For illustrative purposes only
I stared at the bills.
Two hundred dollars.
For my job.
For my reputation.
For my freedom.
For the years I would never get back.
Slowly, I turned toward my brother.
“Ryan…”
My voice cracked on his name.
“You want me gone too?”
For a brief second, guilt flickered across his face.
I saw the old Ryan there.
The brother who used to walk me to school when I was scared.
The brother who beat up a boy in eighth grade because he made me cry.
The brother I thought I had saved.
Then that version disappeared.
