I’m Ryan, 19, and my hands are still shaking as I write this. For a long time, life was simple—my mom, Melissa, loved me fiercely. Before breast cancer took her when I was nine, she set up a $25,000 trust for me to receive at eighteen. “College, a first place—something that makes you proud,” she said. My dad promised to protect it, and for a while, he did.
Then he met Tracy. She moved in with her son, Connor—my age, all swagger and entitlement. My mom’s things disappeared, replaced with what Tracy called “a fresh start.” When my dad died three years later, she dropped the act. I became the unwanted kid in the basement while Connor got new clothes, attention, and eventually a Jeep. I learned to stay quiet and wait for eighteen.
