“Don’t start anything, Lily. We’re already doing you a favor letting you stay here.”
A favor.
I nodded. I knew my place in this house—the daughter who didn’t turn out right.
The one who stayed buried in notebooks, code, coffee cups, and projects no one cared to understand. The one who didn’t marry, didn’t show off a polished life, didn’t bring impressive gifts home.
“Yes, Dad,” I said quietly.
I went into my old room to pack a few things. Once the door closed, I finally exhaled.
They still thought I was the same person I’d been a year ago, when I lost my job and moved back home. They thought I had been hiding, wasting time.
They had no idea that inside that room, I had built something—line by line, night after night—a logistics platform that had been bought just yesterday.
They didn’t know about the contract.
They didn’t know about the money.
They didn’t know about the meeting scheduled for that night.
I packed my blazer, my laptop, and looked at myself in the mirror. Tired—but not broken.
That night, I slept in the attic, listening to laughter from downstairs. It stung, but not in the same way anymore.