I Sat on My Stepfather's Lap All Match, and Mom Was Filming novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: The Video

I stood on the landing with my mother's phone in my hand and did not breathe.

The screen was still lit.

A second message had come in under the first, and then a third.

I read all three.

"Did the little bait take? Send me the whole thing tonight."

"Clause nine is all we need. The second he's on tape with her, he signs the house over or he gets nothing."

"You were brilliant with the seat. I'm proud of you."

My mouth was dry.

I read them again, and the words did not change.

Clause nine.

I had never heard of clause nine.

But I knew what it meant, because I had watched my mother sign a paper at the kitchen table three years ago, the week she married Gabriel, with a lawyer sitting beside her.

She had said it was only a formality.

She had said every marriage after forty needed one.

I took out my own phone with a shaking hand and photographed her screen, one message at a time.

Then the screen went dark, and I did not have the code to wake it.

I stood there, and all of it came together at once.

The four tickets she had bought herself.

The question she had asked before anyone else did: "You're okay sitting on his lap?"

The phone held up over her shoulder for ninety-three minutes.

She had not been watching me.

She had been filming me, and she had been doing it for money.

I put the phone back in the pocket, and I zipped it shut.

I took the charger in my hand, and I walked down the stairs with my face blank, the way I had once learned to walk into rooms after my father's funeral.

← Chapter 10 · All chapters · Chapter 12 →

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