Chapter 20 - The Final Break
I didn't even flinch. I simply sidestepped with effortless grace, letting Paige’s momentum carry her forward. Unable to stop herself, she tripped over the heavy, ruffled layers of her own designer wedding gown and crashed hard against the hardwood floor with a loud, pathetic thud.
My father rushed forward, dropping to his knees to hover over her like a frantic, helpless drone. "Paige! Paige, baby, are you okay? Clara, look what you made her do!"
Paige buried her face in the dusty rug, howling like a toddler throwing a tantrum in a supermarket aisle. But as I stood over them, looking down at the two people who had dictated every miserable second of my existence for three decades, a profound, breathtaking sense of absolute liberation washed over me.
There was no anger left in my chest. No desire for revenge. Just a clean, sterile emptiness that felt like freedom.
"I didn't make her do anything," I said calmly, looking down at my father, whose face was purple with impotent rage. "And I’m done playing your game. The house is yours, the debt is yours, and Paige’s ruined life is entirely yours to manage."
I turned on my heel, my boots clicking sharply against the hardwood floor as I walked down the hallway toward the stairs.
"Clara! Where do you think you’re going?!" my father shouted behind me, his voice cracking with desperation. "We are a family! We fix our problems together!"
"No," I called back without breaking my stride, pausing at the top of the staircase to look back one last time. "You were a family. I was just the unpaid employee you kept in the basement. Consider me officially resigned."
I descended the stairs, ignoring my mother’s frantic cries from the landing, and walked out the front door, pulling it shut behind me with a firm, definitive click. The cool night air hit my face, and for the first time in my entire life, I took a breath that belonged entirely to me.
As I opened my car door, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out, expecting another frantic text from my parents or a blocked number from Paige’s legal team.
May you like
Instead, it was an email notification.
The subject line read: *Application Status: Received.*
