Youth Lake
One month after Mom died, Dad brought his mistress home.
I screamed, cried, and hurled a glass at the woman and her daughter.
The mistress immediately put on her fragile little act. Clutching her head, she leaned against my father and insisted she was fine.
Dad flew into a rage.
For the first time in my life, he yelled at me and ordered me back to my room.
I was so furious that I ran away from home.
He nearly gave himself a heart attack.
“If you walk out that door, don’t ever come back!”
But I left anyway.
I didn’t even take a single cent with me. I wanted him to regret cheating on Mom. I wanted him to regret losing both of us.
Only after I left did I realize how brutal the real world could be.
I hadn’t even finished high school, so the only jobs I could get were manual labor, food delivery, and hourly gigs.
I made just six hundred dollars a month. I couldn’t afford a decent apartment, so I had to share a cramped basement with strangers.
Then one night, while rushing to make a delivery, I ran a red light.
A semi-truck hit me head-on.
I died alone in a morgue, unclaimed.
Meanwhile, Dad was hosting a one-month birthday celebration for his newborn son at the family estate.
He had a gentle wife, a son and a daughter, and a picture-perfect, happy family.
And I died alone on a freezing winter night.
But when I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day his mistress and her daughter first showed up at our house.
This time, I didn’t cry.
I didn’t make a scene.
I simply slipped my father a drug that would leave him infertile.