You Told Me To Walk So I Walked Right Out Of Your Lives Chapter 01
My entrepreneur parents always think I’m just waiting to get my hands on their money.
To “toughen me up,” they put me on a strict allowance: no more than three hundred dollars a month.
I wasn’t allowed to touch the family cars, either.
The day I came home for break, I asked for a hundred dollars for the bus fare.
Instead, my parents tore into me over the phone.
“Don’t you have legs? Don’t think for a second we don’t know what you’re planning.”
“If you want to come home, you can walk. If not, then you can die out there for all we care.”
So, I had no choice but to walk through the night.
A group of kidnappers spotted me, dragged me into a van, and tortured me for twelve hours.
I held on until the police came.
When I finally limped back to the house, there was a brand new Rolls-Royce in the driveway.
It turned out my sister, Sofia, had complained that riding in a Porsche was uncomfortable.
So my parents and brother dropped a fortune on a custom Rolls, just for her.
The officer asked me where I lived.
I shook my head.
“I don’t have a home.”
“Then this villa is…?”
“A house I rent.”
……
“If you want to throw a tantrum, then don’t bother coming back! Yesterday was Sofia’s eighteenth birthday. Who, exactly, were you trying to embarrass?”
The moment I stepped through the door, my father’s voice boomed.
I stopped in the entryway, my head bowed.
The truth was, I had almost died last night.
My mother sat on the sofa, her eyes red. “Amaris, we may not have given you money for an Uber yesterday, but it wasn’t impossible to walk home from there.”
“Sofia waited for you so you could cut the cake with her. She waited until midnight. What you did was just cruel.”
I glanced at the confetti and ribbons scattered across the floor. A lively party had clearly taken place here.
“Amaris!”
Sofia ran down from the second floor in her nightgown and threw her arms around me.
“You’re back! I was so worried you hated me and didn’t want to celebrate my birthday.”
My parents’ expressions darkened instantly.
I had only just been rescued. My entire body ached.
When Sofia lunged at me, I lost my balance and fell straight to the floor.
She stumbled forward, too.
“Careful!”
A hand caught Sofia just in time, but no one bothered with me.
My brother, Ronan, pulled her into his arms and immediately checked to see if she was hurt.
My parents crowded around her as well.
“Sweetheart, are you okay?”
I lay on the floor, a tightness gripping my chest.
I was the one who was hurt.
Sofia’s eyes immediately welled with tears. “I’m fine… Don’t blame Amaris… She didn’t mean to…”
My mother raised her hand and slapped me across the face.
“How could you? Even if you don’t like her, you can’t treat her like that. Apologize.”
In the past, I would have argued.
But after those twelve hours, all the fight had gone out of me.
I pushed myself up from the floor and said quietly, “I’m sorry. It was my fault.”
I used to throw fits.
When I first realized they favored Sofia, I would cry and chase after them, demanding to know why.
My father stared at my quiet face, seemingly stunned by my compliance.
He raised his hand as if to pull me toward him.
“What are you trying to pull now?”
His hand brushed against the wounds hidden under my clothes.
I flinched back, my whole body trembling.
My mother stood up. “Now what’s all this fuss about?”
Just as she reached for me, I backed away again.
“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry… I know I was wrong…”
Tears spilled down my mother’s cheeks. “Amaris, why are you doing this to me?”
I looked at her and said nothing.
She was, after all, the one who had just slapped me.
Ronan held Sofia close, his brow furrowed as he looked at me. “Where were you last night?”
I opened my mouth. “Last night, I…”
Before I could finish, Sofia burst into tears.
“Amaris, if you really don’t want to see me, I can leave.”
“Please don’t do this. When you act like this, you’re hurting Mom and Dad, you’re hurting Ronan, and you’re hurting me.”
With that, she made a show of running for the door.
My father turned and slapped me again.
“You’re getting more and more out of control! Now you’ve learned to play the victim?”
“Your mother and I have raised you for eighteen years. How have we ever wronged you?”
My mother cried, “We controlled your spending because we wanted you to learn some responsibility!”
“Fine, you don’t appreciate it. But why treat us like this? How can you do this to your own family?”
I blinked.
I was the one left alone in the dark last night.
I was the one who had been pushed aside for years.
But now, they all believed I was the one hurting them.
I thought for a moment, then said, very seriously, “I’m sorry. I was wrong.”
“I’ll pay back every cent you’ve ever spent on me.”