My mom went on Facebook the day I moved out.

“The 31-year-old leech is finally gone! No more cooking his meals or washing his underwear!”

I was sitting on the bare hardwood of my new condo, a paper plate balanced on my knee, grease soaking through the cardboard from a pepperoni slice I’d eaten too fast. There was a tall glass of iced tea sweating on the counter, and Sinatra was crooning from my phone like he’d been hired to narrate my escape. On the fridge, a cheap little American-flag magnet held up the HOA welcome letter like it was a trophy.

The post had 1,247 likes.

My thumb hovered, then I started screenshotting. Comment after comment. Name after name. I saved them all into a folder like receipts.

On my kitchen island, next to my laptop, sat a USPS certified-mail slip with that little green return card attached, ready to be used.

I hit Like on every insult on purpose.

Before anyone tells me to “grow up” or “move on,” understand this: I didn’t wake up at thirty-one and decide to go to war with my family over a Facebook post. That post was just the first time they said the quiet part out loud where I could prove it.

My grandmother died when I was twenty-three.

After the funeral, we sat in a small law office that smelled like dust and coffee. The attorney read the will in that careful, neutral voice lawyers use when they’re bracing for reactions. My dad sat back like he owned the chair, one ankle over his knee, already picturing himself in control of whatever came next. My mom kept patting his arm like he was the one who needed comfort. My sister, Tabitha, scrolled her phone under the table, bored.

Then the lawyer said the house was mine.

Not “ours.” Not “the family’s.” Mine.

My dad’s smile twitched. “Okay,” he said, like he was humoring a child. “But we’re still living there.”

The lawyer nodded. “Yes. Your mother and father may remain in the residence under the condition your grandmother set. They can live there as long as they want. The property transfers to you, and the arrangement is at your discretion.”

My mom leaned forward. “So nothing changes,” she said. “It’s still… home.”

The lawyer’s eyes flicked to me. “It’s his home, legally,” he said, gently.

My dad snorted. “He’s my kid. What’s his is ours.”

That was the moment the line got drawn in invisible ink. They heard “your name is on paper,” and translated it to “our house, our rules, as always.”

I didn’t fight it. I was twenty-three, working part-time at a call center, making enough to cover my car payment and not much else. I told myself family was family, that things would settle naturally, that maybe my grandmother’s decision would force them to respect me.

Instead, it made them feel entitled.

When friends came over, my dad gave tours like a realtor. “We redid the deck,” he’d say. “We’re thinking of knocking this wall out.”

We.

When something broke, he decided how to fix it. When taxes were due, he complained about “our bills.” When the water heater groaned, he talked about “my house” like my name wasn’t the one on the deed.

I stayed in my childhood bedroom.

And every month, my dad held out his hand.

“Rent,” he’d say.

“How much?”

“Three hundred.”

At first I thought it was temporary, a way to keep me accountable, a token contribution. Then it became a rule: three hundred dollars due on the first, no excuses.

I paid it for eight years.

I did the math one night after I moved out, staring at my bank statements like they were a crime scene.

$300 a month × 12 months × 8 years.

$28,800.

I paid $28,800 to live in a house I legally owned.

Turns out you can pay rent on your own house if you’re raised to apologize for existing.

My mom loves to tell stories where she’s the hero and everyone else is the punchline.

So when I was twenty-five and I applied for a second job at McDonald’s, she treated it like she’d been handed a gift.

“Why would you apply there?” she demanded when she found out. “That’s embarrassing.”

“I just want something structured,” I told her. “Something with set hours.”

My dad laughed from his recliner. “He wants structure,” he said, like that was comedy.

McDonald’s rejected me.

Probably because I was overqualified. Probably because I put too much on the application. Probably because I wasn’t what they needed.

My aunt Teresa turned it into family folklore anyway.

“Remember when he cried because McDonald’s didn’t even want him?” she’d say at holidays, cackling like she was telling the funniest story on earth. “Still unemployed!”

Here’s what they never knew.

I wasn’t unemployed.

I had been building websites from my room.

At twenty-five I’d taught myself enough code to freelance. At twenty-six I had a steady client list—small businesses, tradespeople, restaurants, local gyms. I built their sites, managed their social media, ran their ads, cleaned up their Google listings, fixed their busted online menus, set up their booking forms. I did it all from a laptop wedged between my knees on that same childhood bed.

At first I tried to tell my dad.

“I’ve got clients,” I said once at the dinner table.

He didn’t even look up from his plate. “Playing on computers isn’t a job,” he said.

“It’s web development,” I insisted. “Digital marketing. People pay me.”

My mom sighed like I was announcing I wanted to be a unicorn. “When are you going to get serious about your future?”

Tabitha rolled her eyes. “Nobody makes money from their bedroom,” she muttered. “He’s probably doing something shady.”

After the third time my work was treated like a joke, I stopped explaining.

I let them believe I was “between things.”

I kept my invoices in a password-protected folder. I took calls when they weren’t home. I did Zoom meetings with earbuds in, voice low, like I was committing a crime. I ran campaigns and wrote copy and hit deadlines while listening to my parents tell their friends I was “still figuring it out.”

Every month I paid the ridiculous rent, right on time.

I bought my own groceries and labeled them. I cooked my own meals and cleaned my own dishes. I did laundry in the basement at night so my mom wouldn’t see me and claim she was “still doing everything.”

She complained anyway.

“Do you know how hard it is to cook for you?” she’d groan to my dad, loud enough for me to hear.

“Mom,” I’d say, “I told you to stop making me dinner.”

She’d wave a hand. “You’d starve if I didn’t.”

I’d be standing there holding a container of my own meal-prep chicken and rice.

And she’d still get to be the martyr.

That was the other invisible rule in our house: the story mattered more than the truth.

And I was cast as the burden.

Justine bought that story without even checking the script.

We dated for two years.

At first she thought it was kind of sweet that I “helped my parents.” Then she started asking questions.

“So when are you moving out?” she’d ask, tapping her nails against her glass in some downtown bar, eyes darting around like someone might overhear.

“I own the house,” I’d remind her. “It’s complicated.”

“Not complicated,” she’d say. “We’re thirty. This is… a lot.”

I offered solutions.

“I can get an apartment,” I told her.

She frowned. “That’s fast.”

“I can buy a place,” I said.

“That’s too serious,” she said.

She wanted me to be independent but not independent enough to make her feel like she had to commit.

Eight months ago she ended it.

“I can’t do this,” she said, voice flat, like she was reading a statement. “I don’t want to tell my friends my boyfriend lives with his parents.”

“I don’t live with them,” I said. “They live in my house.”

She stared at me like I’d said the sky was green. “That sounds like an excuse,” she replied.

After the breakup, she told people I was a manchild who couldn’t take care of himself.

And apparently she kept talking to my family the whole time.

I found that out when she liked my mother’s post.

That was when I stopped feeling sad and started feeling clean.

Because it wasn’t just my parents. It was an entire ecosystem of people who got off on me being the family joke.

The move wasn’t sudden.

I’d been planning it for two years.

I saved. Quietly. Methodically. The way you save when you’re never sure if someone is going to demand “their share” the second they find out you have it.

I bought a two-bedroom condo downtown.

Cash.

No mortgage.

I didn’t tell anyone until the furniture was in, the internet was set up, the bed was made, and the keys were in my pocket.

Then I hired movers.

For a week I packed my life into boxes while my parents were at work. I moved my personal things out of the common areas in slow increments. By the time move day came, the only sign I existed in that house was the “pigsty” of my bedroom that my dad loved to complain about.

On the day I left, I waited until everyone was home.

My dad was in the living room, TV on, volume high like he was trying to drown out reality.

My mom was in the kitchen, clanging pots.

Tabitha was visiting, leaning on the counter with her phone, smirking already.

“I’m moving out,” I said.

My dad didn’t look away from the screen. “Where?”

“I bought a place.”

He laughed. Actually laughed. “With what money?”

“I’ve been working,” I said.

“Sure,” he said, and finally looked at me. “And I’m the President.”

My mom wiped her hands on a towel. “Do you need us to co-sign?”

“No,” I said.

Tabitha snorted. “So you’re moving into some dump with roommates?”

I kept my voice steady. “Two-bedroom condo. Nice building. Downtown. Paid in cash.”

The air in that kitchen changed.

My dad’s smile slid off his face like it had been greased.

“How?” he demanded.

“I’ve been paying you rent for eight years,” I said. “And I’ve been running my own business.”

He scoffed. “Three hundred a month doesn’t buy a condo.”

“It doesn’t,” I agreed. “My income did.”

My mom’s eyes narrowed. “So you’ve been pretending to be unemployed?”

“I never pretended anything,” I said. “I told you what I do. You chose to treat it like a joke.”

Tabitha crossed her arms. “Are you leaving us with all the bills?”

“You’ve been collecting rent,” I reminded her.

“That was for utilities and food,” my dad snapped.

“I buy my own food,” I said. “I pay my own phone. My own car insurance.”

My mom’s mouth opened and closed like she was searching for ammunition. “The laundry detergent,” she said finally. “You use our detergent.”

“I’ve been buying my own for three years,” I replied. “It’s in my room because you’d complain otherwise.”

That was the first time I saw real confusion on their faces, like they were realizing I’d been living parallel to them, not under them.

The movers knocked.

Two guys in baseball caps, a truck idling at the curb.

I pointed down the hallway. “Bedroom’s back there.”

My dad stood up too fast. “Hold on. We need to talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” I said.

My mom’s eyes filled. “You’re abandoning us.”

“I’m moving out,” I said. “Like adults do.”

Tabitha shook her head. “Selfish.”

My dad stepped closer, lowering his voice like he was negotiating. “What about the house?”

“What about it?”

“Are you really leaving us alone in this big place?”

I looked at him. “Yes.”

He frowned. “Then what are we supposed to do about the mortgage?”

“There is no mortgage,” I said.

Silence.

My grandmother had paid it off years before she died. They knew that. They just didn’t live like it mattered.

My dad’s jaw worked. “Property taxes. Insurance. Maintenance.”

“Yep,” I said.

My mom wiped tears with the heel of her hand. “Are you going to help?”

“No.”

That word landed like a dropped plate.

The movers carried my desk out past my parents like they were moving a coffin. I walked through the house one last time. My childhood room was stripped bare. The bathroom I’d used was emptied. The only thing left was the feeling of years of being small.

In the living room, my family sat together on the couch like a unit, a team.

My dad pointed at me. “Ungrateful.”

“After everything we’ve done,” my mom whispered.

“You’ll regret this,” Tabitha said.

I walked out anyway.

On the drive downtown, my hands shook for exactly one stoplight.

Then I felt it: quiet.

A kind of silence you can’t buy.

I ate pizza on the floor of my condo and it tasted like oxygen.

And that night, my mom went online and told the world she was glad I was gone.

That was the moment I decided to stop swallowing things whole.

Her post was a celebration.

“The 31-year-old leech is finally gone!”

My aunt Teresa jumped in immediately. “Remember when he cried at 25 because McDonald’s rejected him? STILL unemployed!”

My dad posted before-and-after photos: my old room, messy from packing, compared to a staged shot of his recliner and a mini-fridge. “His pigsty room vs my new man cave!” he wrote, like he’d won a war.

Tabitha tagged a bunch of her friends. “Warning: this is your future dating gamers.”

Then Justine liked it.

“Dodged a bullet breaking up with this loser,” she commented.

Twenty-eight comments total. Everyone piling on. Everyone public. My full name right there like a label.

I scrolled through every one.

I screenshotted every one.

Then I liked each comment, one by one, slow enough that they’d get notifications.

I wanted the record to show I saw it.

I wanted no one to be able to claim later that it was “just a joke” I didn’t know about.

Then I waited exactly fourteen days.

That part wasn’t spite. It was strategy.

I wanted them comfortable. Confident. I wanted the little dopamine hit of “we finally got rid of him” to sink into their bones.

Because day fifteen wasn’t going to feel like karma.

It was going to feel like gravity.

And the green USPS certified-mail card on my counter was my stopwatch.

On day fifteen—a Thursday, marked on my calendar two months earlier—the first envelope arrived.

I knew the mail truck usually came around noon.

I knew because I’d been tracking it like people track a package they’re excited about. Only I wasn’t excited. I was calm.

The online tracking updated at 12:47 p.m.

Signed for.

My dad’s name.

Three hours later my phone started ringing.

Dad.

I let it go to voicemail.

Dad again.

Voicemail.

Mom.

Voicemail.

Tabitha from an unknown number.

Voicemail.

Call after call after call until the screen looked like a slot machine.

I turned my phone face down and finished the client work I’d promised to deliver that afternoon.

At 4:30, when I finally picked it back up, I had thirty-one missed calls and seventeen texts.

I didn’t panic.

I made coffee.

I sat at my counter like I was about to review a report.

Dad’s first text: We need to talk right now. This is serious.

Second: Stop being childish.

Third: I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but this is not okay.

Mom’s were softer at first.

Please call.

We’re confused.

Your father is upset.

Then, as the hours passed:

I can’t believe you’d do this.

Tabitha’s were blunt.

What the hell did you send?

Fix this.

Vindictive little jerk.

I ordered Thai food and watched a movie.

My phone buzzed like a trapped insect on the table.

I slept with it off.

Friday morning there were forty-two more missed calls, and my voicemail box was a graveyard of outrage.

My dad tried reasonable first. “We can discuss this like adults.”

Then he escalated. “You have no right.”

Then Aunt Teresa chimed in, righteous and loud. “Your grandmother would be ashamed.”

That one made me laugh out loud in my empty kitchen.

My grandmother left me the house because she knew exactly who my dad was.

She’d watched him borrow money from her for years and never pay it back.

She’d watched him smile and promise and forget.

I was the only one who visited her every week in the nursing home without asking for anything.

I deleted the voicemails.

Then I texted my dad one word.

Okay.

He called immediately.

I answered.

“What the hell are you doing?” he barked.

“What are you referring to?” I asked.

“Don’t play games.”

“I’m not,” I said. “Be specific.”

He exhaled hard. “You sent some official notice about the house.”

“What does it say?” I asked.

“That you’re the legal owner,” he snapped, “and you’re informing us of the terms of our… continued residence.”

“Yes,” I said. “That’s correct.”

“You can’t do that,” he said. “We’ve lived here over twenty years.”

“I’m not kicking you out,” I said. “I’m clarifying the legal situation.”

My mom grabbed the phone. “This is cruel,” she cried. “We’re your parents. Why would you send legal paperwork like we’re strangers?”

I kept my voice even. “You posted on Facebook calling me a leech. You invited 1,247 people to clap for it. And you let twenty-eight comments roast me under my full name.”

“That was different,” she said, fast.

“How?”

“I was venting,” she insisted. “To friends.”

“Friends who hit Like,” I said.

My dad cut in. “Fine. Fine. Everyone’s sorry. Can we move past it?”

“Are they sorry,” I asked, “or are they scared?”

He didn’t answer.

Instead he went to the real question. “What are your terms?”

“Terms for what?”

“For us staying,” he said through his teeth.

“I’ll put it in writing,” I replied.

He started yelling.

“You’re acting like a landlord!”

“I am the property owner,” I said. “Those two things can exist at the same time.”

Mom sobbed in the background.

Dad finally snapped, “Maybe we should just move out then.”

“That’s your choice,” I said.

He hung up.

And I looked at the green return-receipt card copy I’d saved on my desk, proof of delivery, proof of reality.

If they wanted paperwork, I could do paperwork.

Monday, I sent the second envelope.

This one wasn’t just a notice.

It was a lease.

Month-to-month. Market rate. Standard terms: utilities in tenant names, maintenance responsibilities, notice periods, late fees, the boring stuff grown-ups pretend they don’t need until a judge asks for it.

I researched comparable four-bedroom rentals in our area. The range was $2,800 to $3,200 a month.

I set theirs at $3,000.

I had a lawyer review it so nobody could claim it was flimsy.

I sent it certified mail.

I emailed digital copies to all three of their email addresses, too.

No confusion. No “we didn’t see it.”

The calls started before the physical envelope even landed.

Dad must’ve checked his inbox at work.

He called at 8:47 a.m.

I was in a client meeting, so I declined.

He called again at 8:49.

Then 8:51.

Then four more times in ten minutes.

When my meeting ended at 9:30, I had twenty-three missed calls and a voicemail that sounded like someone trying to scream through a paper bag.

“You are out of your mind,” my dad shouted. “We are not paying you rent!”

Mom tried diplomacy.

“I understand you’re hurt,” she said, voice trembling, “but this is too far. Can’t we find a middle ground?”

“What middle ground?” I asked.

“Like… five hundred,” she said quickly. “And we’ll help with property taxes.”

“Five hundred is less than what I paid you,” I said.

“That was different,” she insisted.

“Because I was your child?”

“Yes!”

“And I’m still your child,” I said, “and also the owner.”

Tabitha called next, coached and polished.

“Can we meet and talk face to face?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

“Why are you doing this?” she demanded.

“Did you delete your comment?” I asked.

She hesitated. “What comment?”

“The one warning your friends about dating guys like me.”

“It would look weird to delete it now,” she admitted.

That told me everything.

Then Justine texted.

Hey. I heard you’re having problems with your family.

I stared at the screen.

Tabitha had told her.

My ex-girlfriend and my sister had stayed friends after she dumped me for being “embarrassing.” And she’d liked the post where my mom called me a leech.

Justine followed up.

I’m sorry things are hard. Want to talk?

I wrote back: No.

Why?

Because you didn’t want me when you thought I was broke, and you liked the post that made me a joke.

She didn’t reply after that.

My dad switched tactics, tried to sound fatherly.

“Come to dinner,” he said on Saturday. “We’ll discuss this like family.”

“Family discussed it on Facebook,” I said.

Mom cried. “Please, just come home.”

“I don’t want to go back to that house,” I said.

She whispered, “Why?”

“Because it’s where I learned to be quiet,” I told her. “And I’m done learning that.”

That was the week they finally said the quiet part themselves.

They couldn’t afford $3,000.

They’d been living paycheck to paycheck.

They had debt.

And somehow they thought the solution was for me to soften, not for them to face what they’d built.

When my mom called in tears one night, she let something slip.

“The utilities,” she said. “We can’t—your father is trying to make a budget and—”

“What about the utilities?” I asked.

She sniffed. “They’re so expensive.”

“Whose name are they in?”

She went quiet.

Then, small: “Yours.”

I felt my stomach drop—not from fear, but from the sheer audacity.

They had been running the entire house on my accounts.

And never once thought to transfer anything.

Because they never planned for a world where I wasn’t the invisible foundation.

Sunday afternoon I sent them an email with scans of every utility bill for the past three years.

Electric. Gas. Water. Trash. Internet.

All in my name.

All paid from my account.

Under the scans, I wrote one sentence.

These services will be transferred to your names or discontinued on the first of next month.

Dad called within minutes, shouting.

“You’re trying to destroy us!”

“I’m establishing boundaries,” I said.

“Boundaries don’t cut off electricity!” he yelled.

“I’m not cutting it off,” I replied. “I’m ending service in my name. You’re adults. Set it up in yours.”

He told me I’d regret it.

I told him I didn’t think I would.

The deadline came.

They didn’t sign the lease.

They didn’t move out.

They kept acting like if they ignored the paperwork long enough, the world would rearrange itself back into their preferred story.

At midnight on the first, every utility in that house went dark.

The automated systems didn’t care about “but we’re family.”

The lights. The water. The gas. The internet.

All of it.

Dad called at 6:23 a.m., voice hoarse.

“The power’s out,” he said, like he was reporting a storm.

“It’s scheduled,” I replied.

“You can’t do this,” he snapped.

“I already did,” I said.

Mom was on speaker, crying, asking how they were supposed to live like this.

“Sign the lease,” I said. “Set up utilities. It’s not complicated.”

“We can’t afford deposits,” she sobbed.

“Why not?”

Because they’d used the money my dad borrowed to cover credit cards.

“How much debt?” I asked.

She hesitated, then whispered it like a confession.

“About thirty thousand.”

I didn’t say anything for a long moment.

Then my dad tried his last card.

“I found papers,” he said, voice changing, oily. “Your grandmother left a life insurance policy. You’re the beneficiary.”

“Yes,” I said.

“How much?” he asked.

“Enough,” I replied.

“We need to borrow some,” he said quickly. “Just to get through this month.”

I laughed, once.

“Why do you think I would loan you money?” I asked.

“Because I’m your father,” he said, like the title was a receipt.

“That didn’t matter when you were posting before-and-after photos calling my room a pigsty,” I said.

He snapped, “That house should’ve been mine anyway. I’m her son. You manipulated her when she was old and confused.”

The air went still.

My mom rushed in, frantic. “He’s stressed,” she said. “He doesn’t mean—”

“He means it,” I said. “Every word.”

That was when I understood my grandmother with perfect clarity.

She didn’t leave me the house because she wanted me to be generous.

She left it to me because she wanted consequences to exist.

By late afternoon, my phone was a waterfall.

Sixty-plus messages.

More missed calls than I could count without scrolling.

Teresa calling me shameful.

Cousins I hadn’t spoken to in years telling me to “be the bigger person.”

Tabitha showing up at my condo, buzzing the intercom, yelling in the lobby like she owned my address.

“Open up!” she shrieked. “You’re ruining Mom and Dad’s lives!”

“Leave,” I said through the speaker.

“I’m not leaving!”

“I’m calling building security,” I said.

She kept yelling until I gave her sixty seconds.

She left.

Then she called from her car.

“You’re making Mom have a breakdown,” she said.

I pictured my mother’s Facebook post with 1,247 likes. I pictured her smiling while she typed it.

“What you’re calling a breakdown,” I said, “is the story falling apart.”

Later that week, a number I didn’t recognize called.

I answered because something in my gut told me it mattered.

“Is this… him?” a man asked, cautious. “This is Derek. I work with your dad.”

My stomach tightened.

“He told me you’d pay me back,” Derek said. “Five thousand. He borrowed it two weeks ago. Said he’d have money from you.”

My dad’s lie hit my brain like a cold slap.

“He made that up,” I said.

Derek went silent, then exhaled. “I’ve got bills,” he said. “I can’t just eat this.”

“I understand,” I replied. “But it’s not my debt.”

“If he doesn’t pay,” Derek said, “I’m going to our boss.”

“That’s your decision,” I said.

He hung up.

Ten minutes later my dad called screaming.

“You just cost me my job!”

“I didn’t do anything,” I said.

“You told him you wouldn’t pay!”

“Because I won’t,” I said. “You borrowed it.”

He ranted until he ran out of breath.

The next day, the investigation started.

Company policy, apparently, didn’t love employees taking personal loans from each other. And when they started digging, Derek wasn’t the first.

My dad had borrowed from three different coworkers.

And he hadn’t paid any of them back.

He lost his job.

Mom picked up a part-time shift at a grocery store.

Teresa posted vague rants about “family betrayal” without naming me, but everyone knew.

Justine texted one last time.

I’ve been thinking. Maybe we ended things too quickly.

I blocked her.

Because I wasn’t going to let the people who benefited from my silence pretend they suddenly cared once the math changed.

My dad sent me a text on Sunday.

Just one word.

Please.

I stared at it for a long time.

I thought about eight years of rent on my own house.

I thought about my mother calling me a leech.

I thought about my dad’s “new man cave” photo before my bed sheets were even off the floor.

I thought about Tabitha warning her friends that dating me was a cautionary tale.

I thought about Teresa’s McDonald’s story, polished and sharpened and used like a knife.

Then I texted back.

Sign the lease or move out. You have until end of day Monday.

Monday came.

Monday went.

No signature.

No move-out plan.

Just denial.

Tuesday morning I filed for eviction.

A process server delivered the paperwork to Teresa’s apartment, where my parents were crashing because they couldn’t live in a house with no utilities.

Wednesday afternoon my dad called again.

His voice sounded older.

“We’ll sign,” he said.

“The lease offer expired,” I replied.

“What does that mean?”

“It means you need to vacate,” I said.

Silence.

Then, small and broken: “Where are we supposed to go?”

“That’s not my decision,” I told him.

Mom sobbed on Thursday, saying she didn’t recognize me anymore.

I almost said I didn’t recognize her either, but it wasn’t true.

I recognized her perfectly.

She was the woman who’d typed “leech” and hit Post.

It’s been six weeks since I moved out.

Four weeks since that Facebook post.

Three weeks since the first certified envelope landed.

Two weeks since the utilities went dark.

One week since I filed for eviction.

My parents are still at Teresa’s.

The house is sitting empty.

The property taxes are paid through the end of the year because I paid them.

The insurance is current because I paid it.

The mortgage doesn’t exist because my grandmother made sure of it.

Everything about that house is mine, and always has been.

In three weeks the eviction will be final.

After that, I’m selling the house.

The market is good. I’ll make a profit.

None of that money is going to the people who treated me like a punchline while cashing my checks.

People keep asking if I feel bad.

If I regret it.

If I wish I handled it differently.

No.

I gave them chances. Options. Time. A lease they could’ve signed. A clean way out.

They chose the version where I was supposed to cave, apologize, and come back to my childhood room like a man returning to his assigned cage.

They wanted me to be the family joke because it made them feel taller.

Now they’re calling because they’re falling.

All sobbing. All desperate. All too late.

On my desk, next to the neat stack of court documents, the little green certified-mail cards sit clipped together like a chain of proof.

They can call me a leech all they want.

The only thing I ever drained was the fantasy that they could live in my house and still treat me like I didn’t matter.

The 31-year-old “leech” is gone.

And he’s never coming back.