My Gaslighter Dad Said It Was Love

"Jamie Forrest, you only told me you were up after you'd already brushed your teeth. I'm extremely disappointed in you. I need to teach you a lesson, so you only get paid for one check-in."A PayPal notification popped up: one cent received.I frowned, stuck. The cheapest bowl of oatmeal in the morning cost thirty cents. Even with today's one cent, I was still one cent short."Dad, I had a fever last night and felt awful. That's why I overslept. I'm rushing to make it to class. I promise it won't happen again."I was practically groveling, trying to reason with him.Dad's voice was firm. "Son, everyone has to pay for their own mistakes. Wrong is wrong. Don't make excuses."You've never given me any trouble. I don't want you turning into a bad kid who makes excuses for what he did wrong."I hung my head, deflated. The urge to have moved fast enough to avoid being late was gone. "Got it, Dad. I'm heading to class.""That's my boy. Go on, and listen to your teachers. Same as alway

I also wanted to put Dad's mind at ease.But during those days of gastroenteritis, my energy hit rock bottom.I barely had anything to check in about, so I only earned a few cents a day.Dad didn't seem to notice either, or wonder whether a few dimes a day was really enough for a student to live on.Suddenly, it all felt pointless.I checked in less and less. I could survive on one bread roll a day.When I got hungry, I drank water. A jug cost thirty cents and lasted a week.I started finding odd jobs around campus, running errands for classmates in exchange for food and drinks. I actually put on a little weight.For some reason, I felt a lot lighter.But Dad grew anxious because I was reporting to him less and less.He went from coaxing to warnings to cursing me out. "Jamie, if you don't listen to your own father, you'll be struck by lightning!"I ignored him.That afternoon, holding a little snack cake a classmate had given me, I reached into my desk drawer out of habit t

Tentatively, I messaged: [Good morning.]No reply came, only a transfer of one dollar.Testing it, I checked in again: [I'm heading to class now.]Another transfer came through, along with Dad's one-cent transfer.Seeing two dollars and two cents land in my account in no time at all, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.Just a few days earlier, I'd been worrying myself sick over scraping together thirty cents for a bowl of oatmeal.Now I could have a bowl of oatmeal with a plain biscuit on the side.My heart ached with a bittersweet feeling. For the first time, I sat down in the classroom instead of standing at the very back while everyone pointed and whispered.Strangely enough, back when I photographed every single sentence the professor said and sent it to Dad, I could never understand any of it.Today, I only jotted down the gist, and the material didn't seem so hard to follow after all.After class, I sent Dad the key points, feeling a little nervous.All this time, D

Later on, the guys in my dorm and then my entire class got dragged into it.Yet, no one blamed me.They all told me, "This isn't your fault. Those people just can't tell right from wrong."Some even comforted me in turn. "We all survived campus cyberbullying together, so now, we're family. When we make it big someday, nobody forgets anybody."As things kept escalating, I gave in to Dad. I asked him to take the post down.But he said, "This is the price you have to pay. You disrespect your father, you have no manners, and your character is rotten. Everyone around you needs to know it. That's the only way you'll learn to change."I felt completely powerless.I even started thinking about calling the police. I couldn't keep dragging my innocent classmates into this.Even if they didn't blame me, it didn't change the fact that they were suffering for no reason because of me.Then things took a turn.A computer science student had originally planned to hack my account to see what