My Mom Threw Me Into the Streets at 18, Calling Me a “Worthless Mistake”— What I Did After Her Brutal Betrayal Shocked Everyone…

Ma’am, your parents are at the gate claiming emergency.

Those words from my security team didn’t shock me. They didn’t confuse me. They didn’t stir any kind of fear or concern. Instead, they pulled a slow, cold smile across my face—the kind of smile that comes from surviving something most people never would, the kind you earn only after years of swallowing pain until you finally learn how to turn it into power. I’d been waiting seven long years for this exact moment, though not because I wanted them back in my life. Not because I forgave them. But because for the first time, they needed something from me.

On the security monitor in front of me, I could see them clearly, standing outside the iron gate like uncomfortable visitors waiting for permission to breathe. They weren’t dressed like parents rushing to see their daughter. They were dressed like people trying hard to look polished, expensive, respectable—designer coats, shoes that had never seen a real sidewalk, and jewelry that glinted in the afternoon light. Even from a distance, they looked stiff, irritated, and wildly out of place in the world I’d built without them. Their rental car sat behind them, hazard lights blinking, as if even the vehicle was anxious to get away.

These were the same parents who had thrown me out of their lives like unwanted clutter seven years ago. The same parents who, in one single evening, decided I wasn’t worth keeping. I go by Dream Wayne now—legally, professionally, publicly. Twenty-five years old. Independent. Built from nothing. But to understand why those words from my guard made my smile turn sharp, you’d need to go back with me. Back to when I was still naïve enough to believe that blood meant love, or that family insisted on staying no matter how imperfect life became.

I was eighteen then, technically an adult but still young enough to believe my world had some kind of fairness in it. It was supposed to be one of the happiest days of my life—my birthday. Nothing extravagant, just a small celebration at home after I got off work from the bookstore. I’d been saving for college, hoping to major in English or education, maybe both, and my parents had always promised they had a college fund tucked safely away for me. All we had left to do that night was review the enrollment paperwork.

Instead, I walked into the living room and found my entire childhood collapsing in front of me.

My mother was standing dead center in the room, holding printed bank statements like they were weapons she couldn’t wait to use. Next to her feet sat my backpack—already zipped, tightly packed, and sitting upright like someone had placed it there with ceremony. My father sat off to her right in his recliner, hunched forward, staring at a coffee mug like he’d discovered a fascinating new science in the bottom of it. He didn’t look at me. He didn’t look anywhere near me. And that alone told me something was wrong.

But I still didn’t expect what came next.

My mother’s voice hit first. Loud, sharp, and shaking with a fury I’d never seen from her—not even on her worst days. Her face twisted with an expression so violent it looked carved into her skin, her freshly Botoxed forehead struggling to form wrinkles as she let her disgust pour out.

“You’re a worthless mistake of my past,” she said. “Get out and never come back.”

For a few seconds, I genuinely thought she was joking. A cruel joke, sure, but a joke. Parents didn’t say things like that. Not real ones. Not the ones who tucked you in at night or taught you how to spell your name. But her eyes were locked on me with a hatred that didn’t need repeating. She meant every syllable.

Before I continue, please hit that like button and let me know in the comments where you’re tuning in from and what time it is there. Thank you.

That March evening had started so normally. I’d walked home with the hopeful heaviness of a teenager who thought maybe—just maybe—life was about to get better. I expected a small cake, something store-bought with my name misspelled, because that was tradition in our house. I expected the enrollment documents spread across the dining table, maybe a small argument about deadlines or financial aid. I expected a future.

What I got was my mother holding financial printouts that meant nothing to me yet, my backpack stuffed without my knowledge, and my father pretending the patterns on his coffee mug were more important than his own daughter.

And then came the monologue.

My mother delivered it like she’d been rehearsing for months. Every word came sharp and rehearsed, emotionless except for the disgust she didn’t try to hide.

She told me I wasn’t my father’s daughter. That I was the result of an affair she’d had nearly two decades earlier with someone she refused to name. Someone she claimed didn’t matter. She said she’d only kept me out of guilt and obligation. But now that I was legally an adult, she didn’t owe me anything anymore—her exact words, repeated twice to make sure they stuck.

Then she revealed something even worse.

The college fund they’d promised me since I was eleven? Gone. Used already. Spent on a kitchen renovation the year before—the granite countertops, the double-door fridge, the custom cabinets. All of it had been paid for with money she told me was waiting for my education.

I felt my stomach drop so hard I thought I might actually pass out. I looked at my father, the same man who had taught me to ride a bike, who sat in the front row during every school play, who held my hand after my first heartbreak. I wanted him to interrupt her. To stop this. To say something, anything, that proved I still had a parent in the room.

Instead, he kept staring at that mug like it contained an escape hatch. And when he finally spoke, he didn’t even look at me.

“Margaret has made her decision,” he muttered.

Just like that. Eighteen years of calling him Dad, of believing he loved me, and he chose her with barely a pause.

But the cruelest part wasn’t the revelation about my biological father. It wasn’t even being told to get out. It was discovering how calculated the entire thing had been. She admitted she’d been planning this for six months. Six months of friendly smiles across family dinners, six months of filling out college applications with me, six months of pretending to support my future while knowing she’d already taken it away.

She handed me the backpack with exactly $47 inside. Forty-seven dollars. She called it generous considering, in her words, I “wasn’t really family.”

Then she put her hands on me—her manicured nails digging into my shoulder—and physically pushed me toward the front door. The neighbors were probably watching through their windows; I could feel the heat of their curiosity. But she didn’t care. If anything, she seemed to want an audience. She wanted witnesses for what she clearly believed was a righteous, dramatic purge of something she no longer wanted attached to her name.

And that’s where everything stopped.

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Ma’am, your parents are at the gate claiming emergency. Those words from my security team made me smile. Not the warm kind of smile you give to loved ones, but the cold, satisfied smile of someone who waited 7 years for this exact moment. On my security monitor, I could see them standing there in their designer clothes next to a rental car, looking desperate.

 The same parents who threw me out like garbage 7 years ago. I’m Dream Wayne and I’m 25 years old now. But let me take you back to when I was 18, standing in our family living room on what should have been my birthday celebration. Instead, my mother was screaming at me with a rage I’d never seen before. Her face was twisted with disgust, her recently Botoxed forehead trying desperately to wrinkle as she pointed at the door.

 “You’re a worthless mistake of my past,” she said. “Get out and never come back.” Before I continue, please hit that like button and let me know in the comments where you’re tuning in from and what time it is there. Thank you. That March evening started like any birthday should. I’d come home from my part-time job at the bookstore expecting maybe a small cake, definitely expecting the college enrollment papers we needed to finalize.

What I got instead was my mother standing there with printed bank statements, my already packed backpack, and my father sitting silently in his recliner, avoiding eye contact like he always did when mom went nuclear. She revealed everything in one brutal monologue. I wasn’t my father’s daughter.

 I was the product of an affair she’d had 18 years ago with someone she refused to name. She’d kept me out of guilt. But now that I was legally an adult, her obligation was over. the college fund they’d promised already spent on renovating the kitchen last year. The enrollment I was counting on. She’d called that morning to withdraw my acceptance.

 My father, the man who taught me to ride a bike and attended every school play, just sat there examining his coffee mug like it held the secrets of the universe. When I looked at him, begging with my eyes for him to say something, anything, he just muttered that Margaret, my mother, had made her decision. 18 years of calling him dad and he chose her without a second thought.

 The crulest part wasn’t even the revelation about my biological father. It was finding out this had been planned for 6 months. 6 months of family dinners where she smiled at me, knowing she was counting down the days. 6 months of helping me apply to colleges she knew I’d never attend. 6 months of letting me dream about a future she’d already stolen.

 She handed me the backpack with exactly $47 inside. Money she claimed was generous considering I wasn’t really family. Then she physically pushed me toward the door, her manicured nails digging into my shoulder. The neighbors were probably watching, but she didn’t care. In fact, I think she wanted them to see, to have witnesses to her grand performance of throwing out the trash.

20 minutes. That’s how long it took to go from having a family to having nothing. 20 minutes to destroy 18 years. As I stood on the front porch with my pathetic backpack, I heard the deadbolt click. Through the window, I saw her pouring herself a glass of wine, already celebrating my absence.

 The first night, I slept in my 1997 Pontiac Grand Dam, the one held together by duct tape and false hope. Walmart parking lots became my bedroom, and I learned quickly which ones had security that would knock on your window at 3:00 a.m., and which ones would let you exist in peace. The car’s heater had died two winters ago, so I wrapped myself in the one blanket I’d grabbed, pretending the shivering was just excitement about my newfound freedom.

 By day three, I discovered the true extent of my mother’s cruelty. She hadn’t just thrown me out. She’d launched a complete character assassination. According to the story she spread through our town, I was a drug addict who’d stolen her jewelry to feed my habit. She claimed she’d tried everything to help me. But sometimes you have to let toxic people go, even if they’re family.

 My aunt Jennifer, my mother’s sister, who used to bake cookies with me every Sunday, wouldn’t even open her door. Through the peepphole, she called me a bad seed and said Margaret had warned her I might show up with Saabb stories. My cousin Lisa blocked me on social media before I could even message her. My entire extended family had chosen their side before I knew there was a war.

 The betrayal that cut deepest came from Megan, my best friend since third grade. When I went to the bank to withdraw my savings, money from 3 years of part-time jobs, I found the account empty, $3,000 gone. The bank teller, with pity in her eyes, showed me the withdrawal slip. Megan had been added to the account years ago when we were planning our senior trip.

 She’d cleaned it out the day before my birthday. When I called her, she said my mom had explained everything about my drug problem, and she was just protecting the money from being wasted. Tyler, my ex-boyfriend, who dumped me a month earlier for the captain of the cheerleading squad, decided to pile on. He posted photos on Instagram that someone had taken of me washing my hair in a gas station bathroom sink.

 The caption read, “When karma catches up to thieves and junkies. It got 200 likes in an hour. Kids from school I’d helped with homework were commenting laughing emojis. I got a job at a fast food place, but it lasted exactly 4 days. My mother called them claiming I’d stolen from previous employers and was under investigation. The manager, a tired woman who didn’t need drama, handed me $20 from her own pocket and told me not to come back.

That $20 was the only kindness I saw in those first weeks. The parallel gut punch came when I drove past my house one evening, desperate to see if maybe they’d changed their minds. Through the window, I saw a teenage girl sitting in my spot at the dinner table. Rebecca, I later learned, a foster kid my mother had taken in just 2 weeks after kicking me out.

 Apparently, she’d always wanted a grateful daughter, and the foster care money didn’t hurt either. She was wearing my sweater, the purple one grandma had knitted before she died. By week three, I was stealing rolls of toilet paper from public restrooms and living on dollar menu items when I could afford them. My period came with no supplies and no money to buy them.

 I stuffed paper towels in my underwear and pretended everything was fine. The car was running on fumes and I was running on even less. Then came the night that almost ended everything. A February ice storm hit and my car finally died completely. No heat, no hope, just me in a metal coffin slowly freezing.

 I could feel my fingers going numb. My thoughts getting fuzzy for a moment, just a moment. I thought maybe this was the universe’s way of saying my mother was right. Maybe I was worthless. Maybe mistakes weren’t meant to survive. But sometimes the universe sends angels wearing hairetss and orthopedic shoes. I stumbled into Sarah’s diner at 500 a.m.

when the cold had finally beaten my pride. I had 60 cents in my pocket and hypothermia knocking at my door. The smell of coffee and bacon almost made me cry. I collapsed into a booth in the corner, trying to be invisible. Hoping maybe I could just warm up for a few minutes before they kicked me out. Sarah Miller was 67 years old, built like a linebacker with silver hair.

 She refused to die and laugh lines that suggested she’d found more joy than sorrow in life. She took one look at me and knew not the lies my mother had spread, but the truth that only someone who’d seen real pain can recognize. She brought me coffee, eggs, toast, and hash browns without me ordering. When I tried to explain I couldn’t pay, she just patted my hand and said, “Breakfast was on the house for customers who looked like they needed a win.

 I ate and cried simultaneously, which is harder than it sounds. Sarah sat down across from me during the morning lull, and asked no questions about why I was obviously homeless, obviously broken. Instead, she told me about her daughter, Annie, who she hadn’t seen in 5 years because Annie’s father couldn’t accept that their daughter was gay.

 Sarah had chosen her daughter over her husband. But Annie had been so hurt by her father’s rejection that she’d cut contact with everyone. Love doesn’t always look like greeting cards, Sarah said. But real love never throws anyone away. She offered me a job that didn’t exist. The diner was barely breaking even. But suddenly, she desperately needed someone to help with inventory and cleaning.

 $20 under the table daily, plus meals. More importantly, she let me sleep in the storage room behind the kitchen. It had a cot from when her husband used to nap between shifts in a shower that only had hot water if you hit the pipes just right. That’s where I met Mr. Harrison. Marcus Harrison was a regular who came in every morning at 6:15 for black coffee and wheat toast, always sitting at the counter with his laptop, always tipping exactly 40%.

 He was one of those tech guys who’d made his first million by 30 and his second by 31, but still wore the same rotation of five black t-shirts and drove a Toyota Corolla old enough to vote. The thing about Mr. Harrison was that he noticed everything. He watched me reorganize Sarah’s entire reservation system using different colored sticky notes for different time slots, turning chaos into color-coded efficiency.

 He observed me calculating tips and changing my head faster than the register could. He saw me fix Sarah’s ancient laptop by simply cleaning 20 years of dust from the fan. One morning, after I’d been there 3 weeks, he asked me a simple question about how I’d solve the scheduling problem at his startup. They had 50 employees across three time zones and couldn’t figure out how to coordinate meetings without someone always getting screwed.

 I grabbed a napkin and sketched out a solution involving rotating sacrifice zones. So, everyone shared the burden of bad meeting times equally. It took me 5 minutes to solve what his team had been struggling with for months. That’s when my mother tried to reach into my new life and poison it, too. She sent a cease and desist letter to the diner, claiming I was using the Wayne family name fraudulently and damaging their reputation.

 Sarah left so hard she nearly broke a rib. She framed the letter above the coffee machine and told everyone it was the funniest thing she’d read all year. Mr. Harrison offered me an internship at his startup the next day, $15 an hour, which seemed like a fortune. But more importantly, he said he saw something in me that reminded him of himself at that age.

 Hungry, angry, and too stubborn to quit. The only catch was that I’d need to learn basic coding, which seemed about as likely as my mother apologizing. Sarah let me use her ancient computer after closing time. I spent every night from 1000 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. teaching myself from YouTube videos and free coding websites, surviving on coffee and determination.

 The storage room became my dorm room, office, and sanctuary all rolled into one. The next three years were a blur of 18-hour days and 5our nights. I’d work at the diner from 500 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. making enough to eat and save a tiny bit. Then I’d head to Mr. Harrison’s startup where I was supposedly just an intern, but actually became the person who solved problems nobody else wanted to touch.

The breakthrough came during my lunch breaks. While eating my sandwich in the break room, I overheard nurses from the hospital next door complaining about their scheduling system. They were using a combination of Excel sheets, WhatsApp groups, and actual paper that somehow always resulted in either too many people or not enough people on shift.

Night shifts were especially chaotic with some nurses working three in a row while others got none. I started building an app on my phone during breaks. Nothing fancy, just something that could track availability, preferences, and fair distribution. I tested it with the five nurses who ate at Sarah’s regularly.

 And within a month, they were begging me to share it with other departments. Mr. Harrison caught me coding it one day. And instead of being angry, I was working on something else, he became my first investor. $5,000 for 10% of whatever this became. 6 months later, Medyhift had a 100,000 downloads. Hospitals were calling asking for enterprise versions.

I was 21 years old, still sleeping in Sarah’s storage room. But suddenly, I had a bank account with six figures. The first million in revenue hit exactly 3 years after my mother threw me out. 

 Your support truly helps me share these stories, and I read every single comment. Thank you so much. The irony was beautiful. My parents tried to claim credit when a local newspaper mentioned the app’s creator was from our town. My mother told her country club friends that she’d always encouraged my interest in technology, that she’d bought me my first computer.

 The same woman who’d cancelled my college enrollment was now taking credit for my success. She knew nothing about. I hired carefully, building a team of other rejects and throwaways. Kids who’d aged out of foster care, veterans nobody would hire, single moms who needed flexible schedules. We called ourselves the island of misfit toys.

 And we were about to build an empire. Marcus Harrison watched with pride as his $5,000 investment turned into $5 million in valuation. But I was playing a longer game. Every dollar I made, I saved 80ents. I lived on ramen and determination while building something bigger. I hired a lawyer to create an LLC structure so complex that nobody could trace the ownership back to Dream Wayne.

 To the world, I was still the drug addict daughter who disappeared into shame. My mother was still telling people I’d probably overdosed in some alley, using my tragedy as social currency for sympathy at her book club. The years between 21 and 24 were when I transformed from survivor to predator. Not the kind that hurts innocent people, but the kind that hunts those who deserve it.

 My company wasn’t just growing, it was exploding. We expanded from hospital scheduling to entire health care management systems. Every month, the valuation doubled. Every quarter, another competitor tried to buy us out. I finally moved out of Sarah’s storage room when I turned 22, but not into some flashy penthouse. I bought a modest condo in a building where nobody asked questions, and the doorman minded his own business.

 The first night in my own bed, a real bed with actual sheets. I cried for 3 hours straight. They were tears of relief, rage, and something that might have been happiness if I’d still remembered what that felt like. The private investigator I hired cost $10,000, but what he found was worth 10 million in satisfaction.

 My mother, Margaret Wayne, had been stealing from my grandmother for years before she died. Power of attorney became power to destroy. $400,000 siphoned off through careful manipulation of a woman with dementia. The money that should have been my inheritance, split between me and my cousins, had gone to my mother’s shopping addiction and my father’s failed business ventures.

 But here’s where it gets interesting. My grandmother, even with dementia, had been smarter than my mother gave her credit for. She’d written a secondary will hidden with a different lawyer with one specific clause. If any grandchild was abandoned or disowned by their parents before age 21, they would inherit everything upon proving their success.

 Independently, the lawyer had been searching for me for 2 years. Following my mother’s trail of lies about my death. The parallel revelation came from an unexpected source. Rebecca, the foster daughter my mother had collected as my replacement, reached out through Instagram with a fake account. She was 17, scared, and starting to see through my mother’s performance.

Apparently, being the grateful daughter was a full-time job with impossible standards. My mother had her doing all the housework, maintaining perfect grades and performing happiness at every social event. The foster care money went to my mother’s Botox treatments while Rebecca got clearance rack clothes and constant reminders of how grateful she should be.

 Rebecca sent me videos secretly recorded at dinner. My mother telling the same lies about me, but adding new details each time. First, I was a drug addict. Then, I was also a thief. By year three, I’d apparently been pregnant with some dealer’s baby and had attacked her when she tried to intervene. My father just nodded along, deadeyed, while cutting his stake into perfectly even pieces.

 Forbes noticed me when the company hit 50 million in valuation. They wanted to do a profile on the mysterious young founder disrupting healthcare technology. I declined, but knew my parents would see the announcement of my inclusion in the 30 under 30 list. The photo they used was from a tech conference where I’d spoken on a panel about innovation.

 I looked healthy, successful, and absolutely nothing like the drugaddicted disaster my mother had invented. The panic was immediate. My mother called Mr. Harrison’s company trying to verify if it was really me. She called Sarah’s diner demanding to know if I’d been there. She even tried to call my company directly.

 But my assistant Jerome, who’d aged out of foster care at 18 and understood exactly what toxic parents looked like, told her that Dream Wayne was unavailable indefinitely. He said it with such satisfaction that I gave him a raise just for the tone of his voice. I kept building, kept growing, but now with purpose beyond survival.

 Every move was calculated. I incorporated in Delaware for the tax benefits, but kept the money flowing through shell companies that all led back to one truth. I owned everything, controlled everything, and owed nothing to anyone except Sarah and Mr. Harrison, who I’d already paid back 10 times over. The best part was staying invisible.

 To the tech world, I was DW Enterprises. To my hometown, I was still the cautionary tale mothers told their daughters. My mother had no idea that when she bragged about shopping at Nordstrom, she was shopping at a store where I owned stock. When she ate at her favorite restaurant, she was eating at a place that used my scheduling software.

 I was everywhere in her life, and she had no idea. At 25, everything aligned perfectly, like the universe had finally decided to balance its books. The IPO happened on a Tuesday. By Wednesday, my net worth was $200 million. By Thursday, I was shopping for real estate in the exact neighborhood where my parents had always dreamed of living.

 The estate was everything my mother had ever wanted. Six bedrooms, five bathrooms, a pool that looked like it belonged in a magazine, and a gate that required security approval to enter. It sat on the hill overlooking the country club that had rejected my mother’s application three times for insufficient funds.

 I paid cash, closing in a week, and moved in with the same backpack I’d been kicked out with seven years ago. It was symbolism that probably only I appreciated. My parents’ downfall was happening in real time, and I had a front row seat. They’d invested everything in a cryptocurrency scheme that promised 300% returns. My father’s brother had convinced them it was foolproof, the future of wealth.

 They’d mortgaged their house, liquidated their retirement, and borrowed from everyone stupid enough to lend them money. When it crashed, because of course it crashed, they lost everything in 48 hours. My mother was kicked out of the country club the same week I moved into the estate. Her membership check bounced for the third time, and they don’t do fourth chances for people who aren’t actually rich.

 The photo of her being escorted out while crying about discrimination made the local Facebook gossip groups. Someone had captioned it, “When karma has perfect timing, not knowing how perfect it really was.” Here’s where the chess pieces I’d been placing for 7 years started to matter. 6 months earlier, I’d bought the mortgage servicing company that held my parents’ loan. They had no idea.

 Every payment they’d struggled to make, every late fee they’d begged to have waved. Every extension they’d pleaded for had ultimately been decided by me. I’d approved everyone, letting them think they were lucky, letting them dig deeper into the hole they’d created. Megan reached out that same week, desperate and broken.

 She was working as my mother’s personal assistant for minimum wage, treated like dirt and hating every second. My mother had hired her specifically because she knew about the stolen $3,000 and could hold it over her head. Megan offered to be my spy to tell me everything if I’d just forgive her. I didn’t forgive her, but I did use her.

She fed me information about my parents every move, every desperate plan, every lie they told themselves about how they’d recover. She told me about the night my mother found out I owned their mortgage. The screaming lasted 3 hours. The denial lasted three days. The desperation was permanent. Rebecca escaped the week before the confrontation.

 She’d turned 18 and aged out of the foster system. My anonymous scholarship fund specifically for foster kids betrayed by their supposed families gave her a full ride to college and a living stipend. She sent me a photo of her dorm room, the first space that was truly hers, with a note that said, “Thank you for showing me that family isn’t about blood.

” Then my parents discovered the final twist. Their house, the one they’d mortgaged to bankruptcy, was being foreclosed on. The new owner would take possession in 30 days. The new owner who’d paid cash and waved inspection. the new owner whose LLC traced back to DW Enterprises which traced back to their worthless mistake of a daughter.

 They drove to my gate in a rental car because their Mercedes had been repossessed. They wore designer clothes bought on credit cards that were about to be cancelled. They brought printed screenshots of my Forbes article as if that was proof I owed them something. They came with a plan, a pitch, a desperate grab for the life they’d thrown away with me.

 I watched them on the security monitor for five full minutes before responding. My mother had aged 10 years in the seven since she’d thrown me out. The Botox couldn’t hide the desperation anymore. My father looked like a man who’d finally realized he’d bet on the wrong horse, but was too deep in to change course.

 They kept checking their phones, probably hoping I wasn’t home. Probably praying for more time to rehearse their lies. My mother pressed the intercom button with a shaking finger. Dream, sweetie, it’s mom and dad. We have an emergency. Please, we need to talk. Sweetie. She’d called me sweetie. The same woman who’d called me a worthless mistake was now trying to petname her way back into my life.

 I let them wait another minute, then another, watching them shift uncomfortably in their clearance rack designer shoes. I walked slowly to the intercom, my heels clicking on the marble floor. Each step felt like a year of my life being reclaimed. When I finally spoke, my voice was calm, professional, and colder than that night I’d almost frozen to death in my car. There’s no emergency.

You’re broke. You’re being foreclosed on. You discovered I own your mortgage, and now you’re here to beg. That’s not an emergency. That’s consequences. My mother’s mask slipped for just a second before she recovered. Dream, there’s been a terrible misunderstanding. We never meant for things to happen this way.

 You have to understand, we were protecting you from from what? From the truth that you stole from grandma. From the fact that you’d been planning to throw me out for 6 months. From the reality that you told everyone I was dead while you collected a foster child like a replacement goldfish. My father finally spoke, his voice exactly as weak as I remembered. Dream, please.

 We’re still your parents. I laughed and it echoed through the intercom. No, you’re not. You made that very clear 7 years ago. I’m the worthless mistake. Remember the product of an affair that you couldn’t wait to erase. You don’t understand what it was like for me. My mother started, switching to victim mode with practiced ease.

 Having to see you every day, being reminded of my mistakes. Your mistake? I interrupted, was thinking I’d disappear. Your mistake was assuming worthless meant weak. Your mistake was teaching me exactly who you were so I’d know who never to become. That’s when Rebecca called. I’d given her my direct number in case of emergency, and her timing was accidentally perfect.

 I put her on speaker through the intercom system. Dream, I just wanted you to know I got into my dorm safely. Also, Mrs. Wayne is at your gate. She called me 18 times today trying to get me to testify that she was a good mother. I told her the truth instead. My mother’s face went from red to purple. That ungrateful little careful, I warned.

 You’re on camera and Rebecca’s guardian ad lightum would love to hear how you talk about former foster children. My father tried one last desperate play. Dream, we raised you for 18 years. We fed you, clothed you, gave you shelter. Doesn’t that count for something? You did the legal minimum to avoid prison. Congratulations.

 You want a medal for not committing child abandonment until I was technically an adult? Besides, according to the receipts I have, grandma’s money paid for most of it. The money you stole, you owe us. My mother hissed, finally dropping all pretense. After everything we sacrificed, I owe you exactly what you gave me when I needed you most. Nothing.

 I pulled up their mortgage account on my phone. Actually, I take that back. I’m giving you $47. Their confusion was delicious. What? $47? The exact amount you put in my backpack when you threw me out. I’m applying it to your mortgage. You now owe $387,453 instead of $387,500. You’re welcome. You can’t do this. My mother screamed. I’ll sue you.

 I’ll tell everyone what you really are. Oi. A self-made millionaire who survived being abandoned. The youngest female CEO in state history. Someone who built an empire from nothing while you built nothing from everything you stole. Please tell everyone. I’ll provide receipts. Security pulled up in their golf cart right on schedule.

 Marcus Harrison had taught me the value of perfect timing. As my parents were escorted off my property, my mother screaming about lawsuits and rights she didn’t have. My father finally breaking his silence to beg, I said my final words to them. You called me worthless. Turns out I was priceless, just not to you.

 The local news picked up the story within 12 hours. Young CEO denies parents who abandoned her. My mother tried to spin it, giving an interview where she cried about mental illness and tough love, but Rebecca had already posted her recordings online. The truth was uglier than anything the news could have invented. The embezzlement investigation started the next Monday.

Turns out, when you publicly claim your daughter is lying about stolen inheritance, the forensic accountants get interested. My grandmother’s estate lawyer, who’d been searching for me, provided all the documentation, $400,000 traced through 17 different accounts, all leading back to Margaret Wayne’s shopping addiction and failed Botox business she’d tried to start.

 My father filed for divorce by Friday. His lawyer, who I definitely didn’t recommend through back channels, made sure he understood that spousal privilege wouldn’t protect him from testifying about the embezzlement. He chose saving himself over saving her, just like he’d chosen her over me seven years ago. Patterns really do repeat themselves.

Tyler, my ex, who’d posted those bathroom photos, had been working as a janitor in one of the buildings my company had just acquired. He didn’t recognize me when I walked past him in the lobby, but I recognized him. He was fired the next week for performance issues that definitely existed and weren’t manufactured at all.

 Sometimes karma needs an assistant. Megan filed for bankruptcy the same month. Turns out stealing $3,000 from a desperate teenager doesn’t actually lead to good financial karma. My mother, facing criminal charges and unable to pay Megan’s wages, had fired her by text message. Megan’s final message to me was an apology I didn’t read and a request for help I didn’t answer.

 The divorce was final in record time. My father got nothing except freedom from my mother’s toxicity. She got the house she couldn’t afford for exactly 30 days before foreclosure. The auction was private, cash only, and had exactly one bidder. I bought my childhood home for a third of what they owed and donated it to become a transitional shelter for aged out foster