I was barefoot on imported travertine when the call came in, toes still gritty from the last sweep I’d done myself because the cleaning service couldn’t fit me in until next week. Outside, the Pacific kept its steady, expensive-sounding hush—waves folding and unfolding against the rocks below my balcony like a slow applause meant for someone else. My moving boxes were stacked like cardboard skyscrapers along the hallway.
The new key fob lay on the counter beside a folder stamped with my name in bold black ink: REBECCA COLLINS, OWNER. I had opened that folder at least five times in the last forty-eight hours, not because I doubted it was real, but because I’d spent so many years being told my life didn’t belong to me. The screen flashed MELISSA.
I answered, thinking—just for a heartbeat—maybe she’d say congratulations. Instead she said, “We’re on our way to you. There will be fifteen of us.
Prepare beds, towels, slippers, food. We’ll be staying for three weeks. We’ll be there in forty minutes, so hurry up.”
I didn’t shout.
I didn’t argue. I stared past the glass at the ocean and smiled like someone who just remembered where she hid the spare key. Because I made a plan.
That smile surprised even me. It came from somewhere deeper than politeness, deeper than fear. It rose from a place that had finally gotten tired of being rented out at a discount.
Melissa didn’t wait for a response. The line went dead. And the quiet I’d paid two million dollars for cracked down the middle.
I stood in the middle of my half-unpacked living room with my phone still pressed to my ear like it might start speaking again. The sea breeze slipped through open sliders and carried the scent of salt and eucalyptus, clean and indifferent. “Fifteen,” I whispered, as if saying the number out loud could make it shrink.
Beds. Towels. Slippers.
Food. The words hit like a checklist for a resort, not a request to a sister. I set the phone down on the granite counter.
My hands were shaking—not with panic exactly, but with the strange adrenaline of being cornered in a room you finally own. A week ago, I’d signed the final closing papers in a sterile office with a view of a parking lot. I’d watched the escrow officer slide documents across the desk and say, “Congratulations,” with the same tone people use when they hand you a receipt.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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