The Stolen Car
I pulled into my driveway to find nothing but oil stains where my pride and joy belonged. My father laughed when I called, saying my car was now my unlicensed brother’s property. He thought family loyalty would silence me, so I called the police instead.
The silence outside my house hit me like a physical blow. After a 10-hour shift managing user experience for a high-traffic e-commerce platform, I lived for that moment of disconnect—the heavy thud of my front door closing, the click of the lock, the solitude of my own space.
But today, the silence wasn’t inside the house. It was outside. It was a screaming, gaping void in the driveway.
I blinked three times, standing on the edge of the curb, my keys dangling uselessly in my hand. My brain refused to process the visual data. I looked at the neighbor’s lawn, then back at my own concrete pad. I was meticulous. I was organized. I was the woman who color-coded her calendar and had a 5-year financial plan taped inside her pantry door. I didn’t misplace things, and I certainly didn’t misplace a pearl-white limited-edition SUV that I had made the final payment on exactly 14 days ago.
The nausea hit me first. That car wasn’t just metal and rubber. It was five years of brown-bagging lunches. It was five years of skipping vacations, of driving a rusted sedan that rattled over 40, of saving every single bonus and overtime check until I could walk into the dealership and sign the papers without shaking. It was my trophy. It was proof that I, Elina, had made it on my own.
And now it was gone.
My chest tightened. I fumbled for my phone, thumb hovering over 911, but then I stopped. The spare key. I had an emergency key in a fireproof safe in my home office. But six months ago, during a blizzard, I had given it to my father. “Just in case,” I had said. “If I’m stuck somewhere or if there’s an emergency.”
I couldn’t believe it. My father was difficult, old-fashioned, and stubborn, but he wasn’t a thief. Still, my hands were trembling as I unlocked my front door. I rushed inside, straight to the kitchen counter. Nothing. No note, no voicemail.
I sat on the cold tile floor and dialed my father’s number. It rang and rang. Finally, on the last ring, the line clicked open.
“Elina,” his voice was loud, surrounded by background noise—a television, maybe a game show. He sounded relaxed.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
TAP → NEXT PAGE → 👇
