Part 1:

When I got home after a long, exhausting Friday at work, I was expecting nothing more than quiet and comfort. Instead, I was met with chaos the moment I stepped through the gate. Cars were scattered across the lawn, voices echoed through the house, and the front door was wide open as if my home belonged to everyone but me.

This house had been a gift from my parents before my engagement to Lucas. It was meant to be my safe place, something I owned in my own name. But as I walked inside, I felt like an outsider.

The living room was full of Lucas’s relatives—people I barely knew sitting on my sofas, children running through the halls, and his mother already settled in my favorite chair like she had lived there forever. No one greeted me. No one acknowledged me.

Then his mother ordered me to start cooking, as if I were hired help in my own home.