Page 8 of Coerced

There was a moment of silence before she said, “Thank you, Aria. I don’t think we would have gotten through this without you. You’ve been this family’s rock for the last year, and I don’t think we’ve ever told you how much we appreciate everything you’ve done.”

“Yeah,” Jasmine agreed. “It’s nice to know we can always depend on you to be there for us.”

I inhaled deeply, offering a small smile in return. I hadn’t needed or expected any thanks from my family. This was just what we were supposed to do. But I couldn’t deny how good it felt to hear those words from them. It was nice to be appreciated.

“We’re family,” I reasoned. “We’re always supposed to look out for each other.”

At that, I excused myself and allowed my mom and sister to finish their breakfast together.

When I returned to my bedroom, realizing I still had several hours before I needed to head to work, I pulled out the one thing that had kept me sane over the last year.

My paint.

My art.

I’d always had a creative side, loved painting, and often did it in my free time. If I ever believed it could have been a profitable career, I would have pursued it from the start.But I was smart enough to know that if I went that route and didn’t make money from pouring my soul into each piece, I’d grow to hate it.

So, I kept it as a hobby.

And it had gotten me through some of the darkest days during my mother’s cancer treatments. It still did.

Since my art was making me feel better, I thought it might help my family, too. I painted for my mom first. She fell in love with the painting I’d given her, and I’d moved on to Jasmine next. My sister cried when she saw it.

And finally, I’d painted for my dad.

He loved his painting so much; he swore it was his good luck charm. He took the painting to the store and hung it on the wall. He said it put a smile on his face on Mom’s most difficult days.

I spent the remainder of my morning working on a new piece—something I’d likely just hang somewhere in the house for the remaining days we had here—but eventually, I had to stop and get myself ready for work.

Before heading out the door, I made lunch for my family and made sure they wouldn’t need anything else until tonight. Dad would likely be home from work before I was, and he’d handle dinner.

I slogged through the next several hours at work. The job wasn’t necessarily bad, and my coworkers were nice enough, but it was difficult to feel anything but miserable when there’d been so much devastation and despair over the last few months and no sign of improvement anywhere to be found.

By the time my shift had ended, I was glad to be heading home. And that was a bit of a foreign feeling these days. As draining as being at a job I didn’t exactly like was,being at home wasn’t a whole lot better. Of course, I loved my family. It was just that we all had this illness hanging over our heads, and the crushing weight of it was more than any of us had anticipated.

But since I knew I was going to arrive home to find my father had called the realtor, so we could get our house listed for sale, I felt a sense of relief to be able to return home tonight. Maybe that would change as time went on—it’d likely get worse after we moved into an apartment—but for now, I’d take what I could get.

Only, when I walked through the front door, things didn’t go exactly as I’d planned.

As I entered the living room and found my family all there, the looks on their faces told me I had a reason to be happy. I just wasn’t quite sure yet what that reason was.

“What’s going on? What happened?” I asked.

“Aria, you’re the best,” Jazzy declared.

“Me? What?”

“We’re going to be okay, Aria,” my dad said, a look of pride I hadn’t seen in a long time on his face.

My brows drew together. “I don’t understand. What did I miss?”

“Work,” Dad answered.

“I was just at work.”

He shook his head, his smile bigger than I could ever remember seeing it. “I’m talking about work at the store.”

I was beyond confused. I had not a single clue what he was talking about. “Was it busy today?”