The door slammed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the first time in the evening, Rick looked nervous. He turned back to me. \u201cObserve, child\u2014\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I held out my hand. \u201cStop referring to me as a kid.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n He groaned and rubbed his face. \u201cAll right, listen up. We can work something out.\u201d<\/strong> He gestured around. \u201cI\u2019ve been living here for a year. It must have some value.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n They adjusted Mr. Thompson\u2019s glasses. Indeed, it does. You have been occupying this property unlawfully without a lease. If you don\u2019t leave of your own free will, the owner may prosecute you with trespassing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rick swallowed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPressing charges?\u201d<\/strong> I repeated, tilting my head. \u201cIs that a possibility?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Rick\u2019s eyes widened. \u201cWhoa, we must not lose our minds.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There was a knock on the door. This time, I didn\u2019t even have to move since Mr. Thompson did it. There were two uniformed policemen inside when he unlocked it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSir.\u201d <\/strong>One of them called Rick that. \u201cYou have a full day to vacate the premises.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Rick combed his hair and looked from the police to me. \u201cWhere do you suppose I\u2019ll go?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I shrugged. \u201cIt\u2019s not my problem.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The officer took a step forward. \u201cI advise you to begin packing, sir.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Rick ceased his argument.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That night, I sat in my room listening to the sounds of drawers opening, boxes shifting, and bags being pulled across the floor. I anticipated feeling angry, relieved, or triumphant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was emotionless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I lay on my bed and looked at the ceiling. It had taken a year to get here. I watched Rick take over my home and behave as like I didn\u2019t belong for a full year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not any more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I suppose I must have fallen asleep because the house was silent when I woke up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the first time in a year, the house was mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I sat in the centre of the room, taking it all in. There was no eerie quiet. There was silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I went over to the mantle. My mother\u2019s picture was back where it belonged. I had found it in a drawer, buried beneath several of Rick\u2019s useless possessions. I ran my fingers over the frame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I whispered to myself, \u201cI did it, Mom.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Being kind can occasionally be mistaken for weakness. But standing up for myself? That\u2019s how I got my power back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The door slammed. For the first time in the evening, Rick looked nervous. He turned back to me. \u201cObserve, child\u2014\u201d I held out my hand. \u201cStop referring to me… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1904,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodarticles.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodarticles.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodarticles.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodarticles.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodarticles.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5469"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/goodarticles.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5470,"href":"https:\/\/goodarticles.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5469\/revisions\/5470"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodarticles.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodarticles.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodarticles.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodarticles.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}