**A Warmer Neck to Leech Off**
“Stop right there! He’s been burning through my money, and now I owe him? Since when?”
“He’s your father!” Mum blurted out.
Lucy’s eyebrows shot up so high they nearly vanished into her hairline. Her mother stared back, arms crossed, in the sweltering kitchen that felt just as suffocating as their relationship.
“My actual father left me half the flat. That man’s a stranger,” Lucy said calmly.
“You have to understand—he’s lived here ten years,” Gail protested. “He’s put in effort, helped where he could.”
Lucy snorted, barely suppressing a laugh.
“Helped? When, Mum? When he stood over me at the hob, lecturing me about frying potatoes for him—when he can’t even scramble an egg?”
“Well, maybe not financially,” Gail mumbled. “But he’s family. You used to call him Dad.”
Lucy’s gaze drifted to the fridge magnets—faded souvenirs from family holidays with her real dad. The collection had stopped growing the moment Victor moved in.
“I called him that once, at fourteen, so you wouldn’t cry. And he waved it around like a trophy.”
An unwelcome memory surfaced: Lucy, humiliated and furious, barred from joining her friends at the cinema. Victor’s verdict? “Girls belong at home, not gallivanting about.”
“But everyone’s going!” she’d cried.
“In my day,” he’d said mildly, “kids got the belt for backtalk.”
No shouting, just a lump in her throat that lasted till bedtime. She hadn’t cried. Just buried her face in her pillow while he grumbled next door:
“You’ve spoiled her. Little princess. Money down the drain, and for what? In my time…”
Lucy clenched her fists. That was just the beginning. The nitpicking never stopped—her clothes, her appetite, her “pointless chatter.” He ordered her about like a maid in his own personal kingdom.
But she’d clocked it early: at work, he was a nobody. At home, he played the tyrant, slamming tables, barking orders—pretending he had control.
“Mum,” Lucy snapped back to the present. “Half this flat’s legally mine. Victor’s not on the deeds.”
“You don’t get it. If we sell and split it two ways, Victor… he’ll feel betrayed. He thinks of you as his daughter.”
“Right. Let’s think. Oh, I know! What if I sell my half to a stranger, and he gets to share a kitchen with ‘almost-Dad’? Still betrayal?”
Gail fell silent, lips trembling. Terrified of being alone.
“He’s put his heart into this place,” she whispered.
“And I’ve put up with him. If I don’t stand my ground now, no one will. And one day, I’ll end up like you—stuck with some bloke leeching off me and my kids.”
She walked out, unable to breathe in that stranger’s flat beside her mother. Outside, spring teased the air. A bus rumbled past. Kids licked ice creams. Life rolled on, oblivious to the earthquake on the fifth floor.
Lucy didn’t call for a week. Why talk to someone who’d become an echo of someone else?
She focused on her plan: sell her half, buy a studio—anything to escape renting or living next to Gail and Victor. The buyer, a recently divorced man, was polite and calm. A miracle, given Gail’s flair for drama.
Of course, the fallout came later. Voicenotes flooded Lucy’s phone:
“You’re not just selling a flat. You’re selling our family.”
For a moment, guilt gnawed at her. Was she wrong? But then—where else could she go? Pay rent forever while sitting on property?
She rang her dad. They rarely spoke—he’d remarried, moved to Bristol—but sometimes she needed a sane voice amid the cult of Victor-worship.
“Remember the flat you left me and Mum?”
“Course. What’s happened?”
“Mum wants Victor to get a cut. Says he’s ‘earned it’ in ten years.”
A long silence. Then a weary sigh.
“Listen, I didn’t split that flat just to haggle. I skipped child support, but that flat was your safety net—yours, not hers. Who she shacks up with? Her problem.”
Lucy blinked. She’d always thought half was all she’d ever get. Too late for squabbles now.
“So… you think I’m right?”
“I think you’re grown. Do what you need—but do it smart, not spiteful.”
The call lifted a weight. Then another memory ambushed her: college days, forced into a part-time leafleting job because Victor “couldn’t support a freeloader.” Her meagre pay bought yogurt, cheese, a sliver of smoked sausage—stashed in the fridge.
Next morning, only a yogurt remained. Victor sat eating fried potatoes, gulping milk from the carton.
“Did you take my food?”
“Ours, you mean,” he scoffed. “Family shares. You’ll learn when you have kids.”
She stopped buying groceries after that. But the requests didn’t end. “Laundry powder’s low—split the cost,” Gail would say, despite the giant tub Lucy had bought weeks prior.
Now, it was over. Lucy signed the papers, thanked the estate agent, and stepped outside, light with unfamiliar emptiness.
No calls. No texts. Silence settled like dust. Easier that way.
Two weeks later, she treated herself: new bedsheets, a massage, decent trainers. Then, a studio hunt—somewhere no one would scold her for slamming cupboards or steal her food while calling her wasteful.
Six months passed. If not for Nan, she’d never have known.
“Love, your mum’s sold her half too,” Nan said gently. “Said she couldn’t take it. Victor… well, he found a warmer neck to leech off.”
Lucy sat down hard. No gloating—just a quiet click inside. Pity it took so long.
“She says you broke the family,” Nan added. “Says if you’d just put up with it a bit longer…”
“Funny,” Lucy muttered. “She didn’t put up with me once I annoyed her precious Victor.”
Nan didn’t argue. She knew the truth but still hoped for peace.
The next day, Lucy wandered past estate agents’ windows. One photo caught her eye. Reflexively, she clutched her keys—hers, heavy and solid.
No one lectured her on bread-slicing now. No one rummaged through her things. And Mum? She’d made her choice.
