I didn’t scream. Something inside me simply snapped—a clean, silent break. I realized then that Jake didn’t just want me out of the way; he wanted me invisible. He expected me to sneak through my own hallways like a thief just to use the bathroom, all to avoid “offending” the woman who had supposedly gifted him the house.
THE VIEW FROM THE ABYSS
I thought I had won a small victory. I imagined a boutique B&B or a suite with room service. Instead, Jake booked me into a “motel” tucked behind a rusted gas station off the interstate.
The room smelled of forty years of stale cigarettes and damp carpet. The curtains didn’t meet in the middle, and the neon sign from the diner next door flickered across the water-stained ceiling like a persistent migraine. That first night, listening to the roar of semi-trucks, I finally understood my worth in Jake’s eyes: I was a problem to be solved as cheaply as possible.
