Chapter 2: The Envelope He'd Been Carrying
Everyone in that room went completely still.
Mia's smirk disappeared the second she saw what was in my father's hands.
"Dad — wait.
That's mine.
You can't—"
"Can't what?" he said quietly.
"Do to yours what you did to hers?"
The scissors opened.
Mia lunged forward.
"That bag cost three thousand dollars!"
"Her dress cost three months of her life," he said.
"Every shift she worked.
Every dollar she saved.
Gone in five minutes."
My stepmother stepped in front of him.
"Robert, you're being dramatic.
It's just a dress."
He looked at her for a long moment.
Something in his expression shifted — not anger, something colder than that.
"Just a dress," he repeated softly.
"The same way it was just a college acceptance letter last year?
Just a scholarship application that somehow never got mailed?"
The room went silent.
Mia's face changed color.
My stepmother's hand moved slightly toward her pocket — toward her phone.
My father noticed.
"Don't," he said.
"Not yet."
He set the handbag down on the bed and pulled a folded envelope from his jacket instead.
"I've been waiting for the right moment to show you this."
---
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What was inside that envelope — and what had they been hiding from her for over a year?
Click the link below to read the full story.
