Preston did not answer. He only tightened his jaw and kept walking.
I looked down at my phone.
The security camera showed two moving trucks parked in front of my property in Riverside. Behind them stood Cynthia, Preston’s sister Audrey, his brother Nolan, and several movers in matching navy shirts, all gathered outside the iron gate of the house I had bought three years before I ever met Preston, the house I had kept after my parents were taken from me in a highway incident, the house Preston had never paid for, never maintained, and yet had used for years as the background of every image he wanted the world to believe.
I blinked once, then again, because sometimes the mind needs an extra second to accept insult when it arrives wearing a moving company logo.
A second alert appeared.
Manual access attempt at front gate.
