All Chapters of My stepdad's fantasy: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

The motel door was locked.Deadbolt. Chain. The little metal bar thing that looked like it would snap if someone really wanted in.It didn’t matter.Nothing felt locked anymore.Julian was on the bed.Still shirtless.Still bleeding slow through the gauze I’d taped on too tight.The lamp on the nightstand threw weak yellow light across his chest, catching the sweat on his skin, the dark red stain spreading like ink on paper.He hadn’t spoken since the mirror.Since I told him what I saw.Since he saw it too.We hadn’t turned on the TV.Hadn’t checked phones.Hadn’t moved much at all.Just sat.Breathing.Waiting for the next thing to break us.I stood in the bathroom doorway.Arms wrapped around myself.Still in his T-shirt.Still no panties.Still bleeding from the cut on my arm, though

The house looked smaller in daylight.That’s the first thing I noticed.Not evil.Not dramatic.Just… smaller.The gravel in the driveway had bald spots. The roses Mom used to obsess over were overgrown and mean now, all thorns and no flowers. The paint on the front door was peeling at the corners like the house was tired of pretending.We didn’t pull in.Julian parked two houses down.Engine off.Windows up.The AC still running because neither of us could handle full silence.We just sat there staring at it.Like it might blink first.Julian’s fingers tapped once on the steering wheel. Twice. Then stopped like he caught himself.His bandage was fresh ,I changed it at some gross gas station bathroom ..but the skin around it looked red and angry. He wouldn’t admit it hurt. He never admits when something hurts.The USB drive was in my lap.

I don’t remember deciding to come back.That’s the part that bothers me the most.There wasn’t a vote. There wasn’t a plan. One second we were in that motel bathroom with the flickering light and the warped mirror, and the next we were driving toward the only place that has ever really ruined us.Maybe that’s the thing about trauma. It doesn’t push you away from the fire.It convinces you the fire is home.The house looked smaller.Not in a sweet, nostalgic way. Not childhood memories shrinking in hindsight. It looked compressed. Tight. Like it had been holding its breath since we left.The roses along the walkway were overgrown, thorn-heavy, petals browned and curling inward. The paint on the door was peeling in thin strips. Even the windows felt narrower.The pool out back was still. Black. Reflecting the moon like a sheet of polished stone.Julian parked two houses down.We sat there wi

The city swallowed us at 7:14 a.m., gray light bleeding across the skyline like a bruise that hadn’t decided what color it wanted to be. Everything looked tender. Raw. Buildings hunched against the cold dawn, windows reflecting a sky that couldn’t quite commit to morning.Julian didn’t take us to the downtown apartment the one hidden behind shell companies and careful paperwork. The one he used to joke was “off-grid,” like secrecy could be bought and locked away. Instead, he drove in loops. Left turns. Right turns. Sudden lane changes. Past delivery trucks unloading crates. Past commuters clutching coffee like lifelines. People beginning ordinary days while ours had already detonated.The two red drives sat between us on the console.Not touching.Not moving.But present. Like heartbeats.Every time we passed a traffic camera or a storefront lens angled toward the sidewalk, my stomach tightened. She’d wired the house. She’d archived our lives. What if the city wasn’t any different? Wh

 The rural road north of the city turned to gravel after thirty miles, then to dirt packed hard by summer drought. Julian killed the headlights five minutes before we reached the turnoff, navigating by moonlight and memory. The GPS on the burner had been ditched at the last gas station ripped out, SIM crushed under boot heel, phone itself dropped into a storm drain behind a shuttered feed store. We were analog ghosts now.The farmhouse appeared like a bruise against the horizon: sagging porch, peeling white paint gone gray, one window glowing dull yellow on the second floor. A single pickup sat in the drive rust-red Ford, plates obscured by mud. No other vehicles. No motion lights. Just crickets and the low groan of wind through cornstalks.Julian cut the engine fifty yards out. We sat in silence, listening to the car tick as it cooled.“Her last post was three months ago,” I said, voice low. “Forum thread went dead after that. If