Chapter 2 - What They Expected Me to Give
For almost twenty minutes before the plate flew, they planned my life without asking me one question.
Victoria decided which room in my condo would become hers.
Robert discussed selling some of her old furniture and using my building’s storage unit.
A cousin suggested Diego and I could rent a smaller place nearby because “young couples don’t need much space.”
I sat there with my fork untouched in my hand, listening to strangers with my last name spend my independence like inheritance.
My condo was not luxury to me.
It was proof.
Proof of late nights drawing commercial layouts while my eyes burned.
Proof of weekends I skipped because contractors needed revisions.
Proof of cheap lunches, strict saving, and years of telling myself that one day I would have a front door no one could use against me.
Diego knew that.
He had watched me sign the papers.
He had toasted the purchase.
He had called me brilliant when it made him look supportive.
But at his parents’ table, he became their son before he became my husband.
Victoria looked at me as if my silence had been consent.
“So we’re agreed,” she said.
“No,” I answered.
Her smile disappeared.
“Excuse me?”
“My apartment is not being transferred, loaned, shared, or handed over to anyone,” I said. “And I will not pay twenty-four hundred dollars a month for a decision made without my permission.”
Diego sprang to his feet.
His chair scraped violently against the floor.
“How dare you humiliate me in front of my family?”
I looked at him.
May you like
“You’re humiliating yourself.”
Then his hand closed around the plate.
