My dad forgot to hang up. I heard him laugh and say, he’ll never amount to anything, just a loser living off our name. I stayed quiet, sold my $980,000 house, moved everything, disappeared.
They came back from Europe, joking until the key didn’t work. The house, empty, the note, the family loser did this. My name’s Evan.
The moment that set everything in motion started on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon. I had just finished a call with a client and tossed my phone onto the counter when it started ringing again. Dad?
He doesn’t usually call in the middle of the day, so I answered. But before I could even say hello, I realized he must not have heard the click when I picked up. There was laughter on the other end.
And then his voice, casual but cutting in a way only family can be. He’ll never amount to anything, just a loser living off our name. I froze.
It felt like someone had reached through the phone and squeezed my lungs. Then another voice, my mom’s soft and amused, chimed in. At least he’s useful enough to watch the house while we’re gone.
More laughter, then the sound of ice clinking in a glass and my dad’s voice again. Yeah, he should be grateful. We could have just rented the place out.
He’s lucky we even trust him. I didn’t hang up right away. I just stood there listening, my stomach turning into a cold, solid knot.
I don’t know how long I stayed like that before I quietly pressed the red button on the screen and set the phone down like it had burned me. For a while, I just paced around the living room of the very house they were talking about. My house.
Well, technically, I’d bought it two years ago with my own money, a place I was proud of because I worked hard to afford it. My parents had been so excited when I told them I was closing on it. At the time, I thought it was genuine pride.
I liked being the good son, the one they could rely on. I told myself that letting them stay here was just my way of giving back for everything they did for me growing up. But as the months passed, I realized their stays were getting longer and more frequent.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
Tap READ MORE to discover the rest 🔎👇