When my greedy aunt manipulated her way into stealing my $2.3 million family inheritance, she thought she’d secured her children’s future forever. But karma had other plans, and 20 years later, she found herself completely alone and begging the nephew she once called worthless. I’m 29 now, but sometimes, I still wake up with the old nightmare: me, as a hungry 8-year-old, digging through a dumpster behind a 7-Eleven, praying no one sees me.
That was before her. Before Eleanor. That’s not a very common name anymore, right?
She was the kind of woman you notice in a crowd because she’s quiet but steady, like she knows exactly who she is. She couldn’t have kids, though God knows she wanted them more than anything. When she adopted me, I was a feral little thing with scars on my hands from stealing food and running from cops.
She took me in anyway. Her husband, Frank, lasted three months before he packed up and left. I’ll never forget their fight.
I was hiding behind the door, knees to my chest, listening to every word they said. “I told you, Eleanor. I won’t raise someone else’s kid,” Frank said coldly.
“Then you won’t raise anyone’s kid. Go,” Eleanor replied, and I could feel how sure she was about her decision. And he went.
Just like that, it was just me and Eleanor against the world. With time, Eleanor became my whole world. She never made me feel like a charity case or some project she was working on.
She called me “son” from day one, and when she said it, I believed her. For the first time in my short life, I had someone who looked at me and saw potential instead of problems. But not everyone saw me that way.
Eleanor had a sister, Marjorie. Picture the type of person who smells faintly of Chanel and judgment, who measures everyone’s worth by their bank account and bloodline. She had two kids.
They were spoiled, shiny little monsters named Blake and Tiffany, who never had to wonder where their next meal was coming from. Marjorie hated me from the moment Eleanor brought me home. She never said it directly, because that would have been too honest, but kids aren’t stupid.
We pick up on things adults think they’re hiding. I’d hear whispers at family gatherings, see the way her eyes narrowed whenever Eleanor put her arm around me. “Why should our family’s money go to him?
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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