The sight of my mother watching me, spying on me, solidified my resolve. The passive-aggressive phase of my war was over. It was time for a direct assault.
My first target was the Wi-Fi. That night, while everyone was asleep, I crept downstairs to the router in Richard's home office. It took me less than five minutes to get into the settings and change the network password. The new password? StolenFamily42. It was juvenile, I knew, but the thought of Richard typing that in to check his stock portfolio filled me with a vicious glee.
The next morning was chaos. Barron couldn't get online to do his homework. Richard’s tablet was useless. My mother, flustered, tried to troubleshoot. I sat at the breakfast bar, sipping orange juice with feigned innocence.
“My laptop is working fine,” I offered sweetly when my mother asked. I had, of course, been the first to log in with the new password.
That was only the beginning. My rebellions grew bolder, though always cloaked in plausible deniability. I “accidentally” left a red sock in the white laundry, turning all of Richard’s expensive dress shirts a delicate shade of pink. I “accidentally” reprogrammed their high-tech sprinkler system to go off in the middle of the night, waking the entire house.
The final straw came on a Friday night. Richard and my mother were hosting another couple, friends of his from the golf club. They were the kind of people who dripped wealth and fake tans. My mother had explicitly told me to wear a dress and “at least try to be pleasant.”
So, of course, I did the opposite.
I waited until I heard the guests arrive, their booming laughter echoing up the stairs. Then, I made my entrance. I wore my most ripped pair of black jeans, a faded t-shirt for a band they’d never heard of, and my dad’s old, worn-out leather jacket. I hadn't bothered with makeup, and my hair was a wild halo of defiant curls.
I walked into the living room where they were having cocktails. All four of them stopped talking and stared.
“Oh, you must be Tala!” the other woman, whose name was probably Muffy or Bitsy, chirped.
“And you must be… a friend of the man who is sleeping with my mother,” I replied, my voice dangerously pleasant.
The silence that followed was absolute. The woman’s face froze in a horrified smile. My mother looked like she was going to faint. But it was Richard’s face that I watched. The charming, welcoming mask dissolved, replaced by a look of pure, unadulterated fury. His eyes turned to cold, hard chips of ice.
“It was so lovely to meet you,” I said to the stunned guests, giving them a little wave. “Do enjoy the appetizers. I hear the shrimp is to die for.”
I sauntered into the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, and went back upstairs, leaving a crater of social devastation in my wake. I didn’t have to wait long. Within ten minutes, I heard the front door open and close as the guests made their hasty escape.
Then, heavy footsteps on the stairs. My door was thrown open without a knock. It was Richard.
The charming man was gone. In his place stood a cold, angry stranger.
“In my office,” he commanded, his voice a low growl that promised consequences. “Now.”