I Thought Love Had to Be Earned Through Chores, They Hugged Me novel · Chapter 17 of 24
Chapter 17: The Social Worker
By seven in the morning there were four news vans at the gate.
The gate man stood in front of them with his arms out.
From the kitchen window I could see the long lenses.
They were pointed at the house.
At the kitchen window.
At me.
I stepped back behind the fridge.
"Don't," Wesley said from the table. "Don't hide. That's what they want."
"Then what do I do?"
He didn't know. Nobody did.
At nine the doorbell rang, and it wasn't a reporter.
It was a woman in a brown blazer with a lanyard and a canvas bag full of folders.
The social worker.
She shook everyone's hand. She shook mine last, and she looked at my knuckles while she did it.
"I'd like to see where Minnie sleeps," she said.
Nobody moved.
Then Mom stood up.
"I'll show you," she said.
I thought she'd take her to the third floor. The canopy bed. The walk-in closet.
She didn't.
She walked her straight across the kitchen and opened the storage room door.
The mops. The buckets. My cardboard, folded flat in the corner.
The pieces of beige phone I'd swept into a dustpan and hadn't thrown out.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of I Thought Love Had to Be Earned Through Chores, They Hugged Me are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
← Chapter 16 · All chapters · Chapter 18 →
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend