Chapter 4

The ride home was a silent, suffocating torture. I sat in the back seat, the sting on my cheek a dull throb, my mind a blank, roaring void. When we pulled into the driveway, Robert killed the engine and turned to look at me, his eyes filled with a cold, hard finality.

"Get out of the car," he said.

I stumbled out and walked toward the front door, assuming the rest of this nightmare would unfold inside. But they didn't follow me. I turned back and saw my mother, Sarah, pointing toward the curb.

My stomach churned.

There, next to the garbage cans, were two black trash bags. Ripped and overflowing. My clothes, my posters, my few personal belongings. And on top of the pile, like a desecrated monument, sat my laptop, its screen smashed.

"What... what is this?" I whispered, though I already knew the answer.

"You are no longer welcome in this house," Sarah said, her voice devoid of any emotion. "We will not harbor a cheater and a liar under our roof."

"You're throwing me out?" The words felt foreign, impossible. "This is my home."

"This was your home," Robert corrected, stepping forward. He was holding something. It was my collection of notebooks, the ones from the past three years. Not just the binder from the library, but all of them. Thousands of hours of my life, bound in cheap spiral covers. They were my proudest accomplishment, the physical proof of my hard work.

"You won't be needing these anymore," he said. And with a grunt of effort, he began to rip them in half, the sound of tearing paper and snapping cardboard cutting through the quiet afternoon air. He tore through them, one by one, letting the shredded pages flutter to the ground like dead leaves.

"No!" I screamed, a raw, desperate sound. I lunged forward, trying to save them, but he shoved me back hard. I stumbled and fell to the asphalt.

"Stay down," he snarled.

He destroyed every single one. My history notes, my literary analyses, my complex math proofs. All of it, gone. A bonfire of my past and my future, right there on the driveway.

"Your education is over," Sarah announced from the porch, crossing her arms. "We will not waste another cent on a fraud. You're on your own now. You can see what the real world is like for people like you."

I pushed myself up, my hands scraped and bleeding, my mind reeling. This couldn't be happening. This was a nightmare.

Then, the front door opened. Ethan stepped out, a smug, satisfied smirk on his face. He walked past his parents and stopped right in front of me.

He looked down at the shredded paper scattered around my feet, then at my face, streaked with dirt and tears.

"Looks like you're having a rough day," he said, his voice a soft, mocking caress. "Tsk, tsk. All that hard work, gone to waste."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He took out a crisp twenty-dollar bill and held it out to me.

"Here," he said. "For the road."

The sheer, unadulterated cruelty of the gesture stole my breath. He wasn't just kicking me when I was down, he was grinding his heel into my face, and he was loving it.

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