Dad. I

dy and calm, my eyes fixed on a crack in

a man I hadn't lived with in over a decade. "Ava, thank you.

ant a merger, a lifeline, it meant

d. Just send m

nd the phone was snatched from my hand. I looked

so tight on my phone I was afraid it would crack. He e

ss, Liam," I said, my voi

You live in my house, Ava. Everything you do is my busine

ission. As if I were his property. A familiar ache started

iam, two years older, was the only one who didn't look at me with pity. He was my protector, my only friend, the center of my sma

me a tool he learne

when he was studying, every time I covered for him with his father, was a silent declaration of my love. And for ten years,

urned to me. He was drunk, his usual charisma replaced with a raw vulnerability I had never seen. He held my face in his

ing flight after a long winter. I thought this w

e doorb

r makeup smeared with tears, her voice

lance, pulling Chloe into his arms and murmuring comforts into her hair. He was a different person, the vulnerability gone, the c

ycle of hope and despair he had put me through countless times. I watched him dote on Chloe, buying her expens

ting in the trash can in his room, its wing snapped. It was a symbolic gesture, a final, brutal reject

ront of him, I fel

e low and threatening. Chloe was coming to stay for a few days, an

t my keys, picked out the one for the small apartment his father h

er

t disappointed by my easy compliance. He expected a fight, tears, a plea. He w

at easily?" he asked, a

can have it," I sa

brushing mine. The touch sent a jolt of nothin

't look pleased. "Now you can't

am, I want to move out. I

ur college tuition, for your car, for everything. You're not going anywhere until I say you can. You'll stay rig

ought he had won, that he had put me back in my box. But he was wrong. He didn't see the ch