Chapter 5 - The Invasion
I was in the middle of a high-stakes Zoom meeting with a client when the front door of my apartment swung open.
Eric walked in, trailing two massive suitcases. Behind him were his mother, Gloria, and his sister, Brittany.
I muted my microphone, staring in shock. “Eric? What is going on?”
“Surprise!” Gloria boomed, dropping her designer knock-off purse on my marble counter. “We decided to come visit the big city for a few days.”
“I forgot to tell you,” Eric whispered, avoiding eye contact. “They’re staying for a long weekend.”
The long weekend quickly turned into two miserable weeks.
Gloria criticized everything. She complained that my organic groceries were "pretentious." She commented on how late I worked, heavily implying that a good wife should be preparing hot meals for her husband.
“You know, in my day, a woman made sure her man’s home was a sanctuary,” Gloria said one evening, dragging a finger across my spotless mantle to check for dust.
“This is my sanctuary too, Gloria,” I replied sharply. “And I work fifty hours a week to maintain it.”
“Well, clearly Eric carries the real weight now with his big new job,” she smirked.
Brittany was a different kind of nightmare. She didn’t criticize; she simply consumed. My expensive La Mer face creams started vanishing. My designer shoes were routinely scattered around the guest room.
One morning, I caught Brittany spraying my $300 Maison Francis Kurkdjian perfume like it was cheap body spray.
“Brittany, please don’t use that,” I said. “It’s very expensive.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh my God, Claire. We’re basically sisters. Don’t be so stingy.”
When I complained to Eric that night, he blew up at me.
“They are my family! They are guests in our home! Stop acting like a spoiled princess obsessed with her material possessions. It’s just perfume.”
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I looked at the man sleeping in my bed, realizing I didn't recognize him at all. The apartment suddenly felt incredibly small, and the walls were closing in.
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