The morning rain hadn’t let up, and the cracked window in my car dripped rhythmically as I parked in front of what used to be home. The old Craftsman on Greenfork Street looked just as I remembered—except now, it groaned under its own weight, bowed by secrets and rot. But this wasn’t the beginning.
The beginning was three years ago, the day we buried our father under a sky so gray it seemed painted in mourning.
Kyle had stood beside me at the graveside, stiff in a perfectly pressed black suit, thumbs dancing across his phone screen while I tried to steady my shaking hands. My father’s casket lowered into the earth, and something inside me lowered with it.
Dad was my world. After our mom died when I was twelve, I stayed behind while Kyle escaped to college and later, freedom.
I stayed for the late nights, the doctor visits, the heavy silences when the pain got too loud to speak over.
I stayed and cared. Kyle returned for funerals and legalities. At the will reading, the punch landed hard and clean.
“The house goes to Kyle,” the lawyer said.
Just like that. I received a check for $3,000 and a hollow smile from my brother, who didn’t so much as blink at the news.
By that evening, Kyle had already packed my future. “You need to be out by Sunday.”
I stared at him across our father’s kitchen, numb.
“This is my home.”
“No.
It was Dad’s. And now it’s mine.”
He didn’t flinch. Not even a hint of shame.
I moved out, climbed above a bakery with a leaky ceiling and no insulation.
I worked three jobs and ate whatever I could afford. I became invisible—but I was saving.
Every dollar was a step back toward the only place I had ever called home. Then, out of nowhere, the text came.
“Still want the house?
30% off. Quick sale.”
I knew better. My gut said don’t trust him.
But heartstrings can drown out alarms.
I needed to see it. The tour was too perfect.
Fresh paint, gleaming floors, even the fireplace screen had been polished. Kyle smiled like a man with nothing to hide.
I asked about the basement.
“Dry as a bone,” he lied. Two days after the deal closed, the storm came. By Wednesday, the basement walls wept.
Jagged cracks crawled up from the foundation like veins of betrayal.
By Thursday, the kitchen counter had tilted so badly my coffee mug slid off on its own. The inspector didn’t mince words.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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