My Mom Removed My Bedroom Door So Her New Boyfriend Could “Monitor” Me. She Said I Was Making Up Lies About Him. Then I Found My Father’s Secret Journal Hidden In The Attic.

The Escape Attempt

That night mom told me I was leaving for boarding school on Monday. This special place would help me deal with my delusions about Brandon. She’d already called the school.

They were expecting me. It was a thousand miles away in the mountains. No phones allowed. No outside contact for the first 6 months to avoid negative influences.

I realized this was Brandon’s plan to shut me up for good, to make me disappear without actually calling me. I managed to slip out Saturday morning when mom went grocery shopping and Brandon was in the shower. I could hear the water running as I eased open the front door.

I ran to Ashley’s house and used her phone to call Uncle Henry. Ashley’s mom was at work and Ashley covered for me. Bless her.

I told him about the boarding school. He said to pack a bag and meet him at the library in an hour. But when I got back home Brandon was waiting on the front steps, his hair still damp.

He’d noticed I was gone. He dragged me inside by my hair, my scalp burning. Mom wasn’t back yet.

He threw me against the wall hard enough to knock a picture frame down and said I’d ruined everything. He said he’d worked too hard to let a bratty kid destroy his plans. He said dad deserved to rot in prison, that he’d been planning this for months before that night at the bar.

He said mom was easy to manipulate, so desperate for attention after dad started working two jobs to pay off the mortgage. I asked him why he called that man in the bathroom, needing to hear him say it. Brandon laughed, an ugly sound.

He said the guy was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Brandon had gone in there to plant a bloody knife he’d prepared, one that would have dad’s prints on it from the kitchen at home. But the hammered guy saw him placing it near the sink and started asking questions, getting too close.

So Brandon had to silence him quick and messy using that same knife. Then when dad came in minutes later to help, it was perfect. The blood was fresh.

Dad’s prince got on everything when he tried to help the victim, tried to stop the bleeding. And in the chaos, Brandon pocketed the actual murder weapon and left a different knife at the scene, one he’d also prepared but that wouldn’t trace back to him.

Caught on Tape

I was recording everything on Ashley’s phone that I’d hidden in my pocket. The record button pressed before I even walked in. Brandon didn’t notice.

He was too busy ranting about how smart he’d been, how he’d worn gloves, how he’d studied the bar’s schedule for weeks. He said after dad was gone marrying mom was just smart business. She had good life insurance from her job at the hospital and I’d be worth even more in social security if something happened to her.

Maybe a car accident, maybe a fall, maybe she’d just get sad and take too many pills. That’s when mom walked in. She’d come back early because she forgot her wallet.

She heard everything Brandon had just said. Her face went white as paper. She dropped the groceries, oranges rolling across the floor.

Brandon spun around realizing his mistake. He tried to backtrack saying I’d made him angry, that he didn’t mean it, that he was just trying to scare me straight, but mom had heard enough. The veil had finally lifted.

Brandon stepped toward her and she backed away, her hand reaching behind her. She told him to get out. He said she was overreacting.

She grabbed a kitchen knife from the block and told him to leave or she’d call the police. Brandon laughed and said she wouldn’t dare. Too much scandal, too much shame.

What would the neighbors think? But mom’s hand was steady as she held the knife. For the first time in months, I saw the mom I used to know, the one who protected me from nightmares and kissed scraped knees.

Brandon realized she was serious. His face changed, the mask finally dropping completely. He grabbed his keys and wallet from the counter but before leaving he turned to mom and said this wasn’t over.

He said he knew too much about her, about the affairs she’d had before dad when they were first married, about the money she’d stolen from dad’s savings to cover her shopping debts. He said if she went to the police he’d destroy her reputation. Then he left, slamming the door so hard the windows shook and the remaining pictures fell off the walls.

Mom collapsed on the floor crying, her body shaking with sobs. I sat next to her and showed her the recording on Ashley’s phone. She listened to Brandon’s confession again, her face crumbling more with each word.

She kept saying she was sorry, that she’d been so stupid, that she’d failed me and dad both. I told her we needed to call the police now, but she was scared of Brandon’s threats, scared of losing everything. I called Uncle Henry and said he came over within minutes with the bar footage on a USB drive.

We sat mom down at the kitchen table and showed her everything. The journal entries I’d saved screenshots of, the security footage showing Brandon’s movements, the witness statements he’d collected and had notarized. Mom threw up when she realized she’d been sleeping next to dad’s killer for months, that she’d been planning a wedding with him.