“It was a joke!”
He looked desperately at me.
“Carol knows it was a joke. Tell her!”
I folded my arms.
“Funny. I forgot to laugh.”
Patricia opened her folder.
She removed a document and handed it to her son.
Then she calmly revealed the detail Ryan apparently never expected me to learn.
**The house across the street wasn’t his.**
It belonged to Patricia.
Ryan was merely renting it from his mother—and he was already three months behind on rent.
Even worse for him, his lease prohibited harassment of neighbors and unauthorized alterations.
Patricia glanced toward the concrete block.
“I’d say this qualifies as both.”
Ryan stared at her.
Then Patricia delivered the consequence.
“You have thirty days to move out.” :chatgpt-content-reference{index=”7″}
Suddenly, the man who had spent weeks mocking me wasn’t smiling anymore.
“Mom, please. Where am I supposed to go?”
Patricia finally looked directly at him.
“Anywhere that teaches you some manners.”
Ryan turned toward me and started offering apologies and promises.
I listened.
Then I reminded him that being a man didn’t give him ownership over everyone around him.
And before walking away, I couldn’t resist borrowing his favorite suggestion.
“Maybe try an Uber.”
For the first time, I saw the corner of Patricia’s mouth twitch into a smile. :chatgpt-content-reference{index=”8″}
The concrete block was removed before eight that morning.
My driveway was mine again.
