With my anger pacified for a while, I decided to return to the place I dreaded most—my own apartment. It wasn't the building itself that grated on my nerves—rather, it was the people I shared it with.
My unemployed, insufferable sister, Olivia, and her useless excuse of a husband, Michael.
Seven years ago, Olivia threw her life away for a spineless coward. She got pregnant out of wedlock, dropped out of college, and married her "sweetheart." I begged her to reconsider. Begged her to abort the baby and keep her future intact, that Michael was nothing but a loser even to his own family but no. She swore up and down it was love.
Two years later, Michael lost his pathetic little job. Debts piled up. Soon, they were homeless and guess who had to step in? Me. Not because I was kind-hearted—God knows I'm not—but because our mother begged. And because I pitied the poor child they dragged into their mess.
More years passed, another baby was born, and still, Michael refused to keep a damn job. Every position he took lasted a pathetic three months before he was let go. Incompetence? Probably. His ego? Definitely. The low life had the audacity to claim that the jobs were beneath him.
He was the first man who almost died under me.
The day I snapped—a moment I wasn't proud of—I beat him mercilessly. My fists rained down on him like a storm, each blow sinking deep into his worthless flesh. By the time I was done, his spine had shifted, his face barely recognizable. I was detained for a night after I reported myself for assault. He spent two months rotting in a hospital bed—two months of doing absolutely nothing.
And Olivia? That spineless idiot still clung to him. Throwing her future away for a man who didn't know what he wanted, It made me sick.
When I returned home, the air inside was thick with the stench of baby powder, unwashed dishes, and stale disappointment. Olivia and Michael's voices leaked through the thin walls, as they always did—her sharp and nagging, his sluggish and defensive.
I shut the door behind me and leaned against it, letting my head fall back. The silence before they noticed my arrival was my only moment of peace.
Then—
"You're home early." Olivia's voice carried from the kitchen, clipped and suspicious.
A slow, deep breath. I forced my hands to relax at my sides before I responded. "Yeah."
She emerged from the kitchen with a frown, a dish towel draped over her shoulder while carrying Lily, her daughter on one hand. Her once vibrant face, the one that used to be full of teenage defiance and reckless love, had dulled under years of stress. But I didn't pity her. She made her bed, and she could rot in it for all I cared.
Her eyes flickered over me, sharp and knowing. "Did something happen at work?"
Michael's sluggish form appeared in the doorway, scratching at his stomach through a threadbare T-shirt. His face, unshaven and perpetually unimpressed, twisted into something smug. "Got fired, didn't you?"
I twitched. That idiot guessed it right in one try, like he had been waiting for this day to come.
Olivia gasped. "No way."
The pity in her tone nearly did me in.
Michael chuckled under his breath. "Bet you weren't as perfect as you thought."
Something snapped inside me. The faint calm I'd managed to regain outside crumbled under the weight of my growing hatred.
One step.
Then another.
Until I was toe-to-toe with Michael.
He barely had time to register the shift in my expression before my hand shot out, gripping his throat. His smirk vanished, replaced by wide-eyed panic as I pushed him back, slamming him against the nearest wall.
"You think this is funny?" My voice was low, steady, laced with venom.
He wheezed, his hands clawing at mine. "L-let go—"
I squeezed. Just enough to make him squirm, to remind him who was in control.
"You sit in this house all day, contributing nothing. You mooch off my money, eat my food, breathe my air—and you have the audacity to look down on me?"
His eyes bulged.
"Stop!" Olivia shrieked, rushing forward, but I shot her a glare so sharp she skidded to a halt.
"Stay out of this, Olivia," I warned, my grip tightening slightly on her useless husband. "Or do you want a matching injury to go with his last one?"
Tears welled up in her eyes, but she said nothing. She knew better than to challenge me when I was like this.
I turned my attention back to Michael. His face was turning an amusing shade of red, his chest rising and falling in panicked bursts.
"I should've let you starve," I murmured. "Should've left you both to rot on the streets. You should be thanking me every damn day you wake up under my roof."
Lily's tiny cries broke out— raining a shower of guilt on me. I was threatening her deadbeat father in front her. Even though her little mind couldn't comprehend what was happening, it was still a cruel thing to do.
I shoved him away, releasing him from my grasp. He stumbled, coughing violently, barely able to stay on his feet.
"I'm not in the mood for your bullshit today," I continued, adjusting my shirt as I stepped back. "Stay out of my sight. Both of you."
Michael didn't need to be told twice. He scurried away, dragging Olivia with him, but not before she sent me a glare filled with helpless resentment.
I didn't care. Let her hate me. I thrived on it. Turning away, I made my way to my room, slamming the door shut behind me.
The silence that followed was deafening. I collapsed onto my bed, staring at the ceiling, my body still vibrating with fury. "I need a drink." I muttered to myself.
This was my life.
My reality.
And I was so goddamn tired of it.