My name is Charity Lawson, and on my sixteenth birthday, the man who raised me threw a ten-dollar bill onto the kitchen table and told me to get out.

My name is Charity Lawson, and on my sixteenth birthday, the man who raised me threw a ten-dollar bill onto the kitchen table and told me to get out. He thought it was the ultimate insult, the final humiliation that would break me completely. Instead, it became the moment I stopped being afraid.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The discovery came three weeks before my birthday, on a Tuesday afternoon when I was supposed to be at the library. I’d come home early because our study group cancelled, and the house on South Hill was supposed to be empty. Lester worked until six. My aunt Vicki—his sister who’d moved in after my mother died when I was four—had book club on Tuesdays. My half-brother Knox had hockey practice.

The house smelled like mothballs and the cheap air freshener Vicki bought in bulk. I headed straight for my room, a converted storage space on the second floor that still had boxes stacked in the corners, intending to finish my chemistry homework in peace.

That’s when I heard Vicki’s voice drifting up from the kitchen, sharp and anxious in a way that made me freeze on the stairs.

“I’m telling you, Lester, she’s getting suspicious. Yesterday she asked why Knox gets new equipment every season while she’s wearing clearance rack clothes from three years ago.”

“So what?” Lester’s voice, dismissive. “She’s always been sensitive about money. Jealous of her brother.”

“She’s sixteen now. Old enough to ask questions. Old enough to go looking for answers.”

Glass clinked—someone pouring a drink, probably Lester with his afternoon bourbon. “There’s nothing for her to find. The trust is locked down tight. She doesn’t even know it exists.”

My heart stopped. Trust?

“I’m just saying,” Vicki continued, “maybe we should slow down. The last withdrawal was pretty large. What if someone notices?”

“Who’s going to notice? The court checks in maybe once every five years, and we’ve got all the receipts we need. Orthodontia, tutoring, school supplies—it’s all documented. Nobody’s going to question us for giving our daughter a comfortable life.”

Our daughter. The phrase sat wrong in my mouth, bitter and strange.

“Still,” Vicki said, “seventeen thousand in one month—”

“Was necessary,” Lester cut her off. “Knox needed that hockey camp, and the Range Rover wasn’t going to pay for itself. Besides, there’s plenty left. The old man set up that trust with over three hundred grand. Even after all these years, there’s still enough to keep us comfortable.”

The world tilted sideways. I pressed my back against the wall, chemistry textbook clutched against my chest, trying to process what I was hearing. A trust. Three hundred thousand dollars. Money that was supposed to be mine, being spent on Range Rovers and hockey camps for a brother who got everything while I wore thrift store jeans and worked weekend shifts at the grocery store to afford school supplies.

I didn’t confront them that day. I didn’t storm down the stairs demanding explanations. Instead, I crept back outside, walked around the block three times until my heart stopped hammering, then came home again, louder this time, calling out that I was back early.

Vicki appeared from the kitchen with a smile that looked practiced. “Oh, honey, I thought you had study group?”

“Cancelled,” I said, watching her face carefully. “I’m going to do homework in my room.”

“That’s nice, dear. Dinner’s at six.”