They Valued a Guinea Pig More Than Me, So I Left Chapter 06
A month later, I found a job.
Copywriter at a small ad agency. Two thousand a month.
My boss called it “flexible hours.” It meant twenty-four seven on call. Phone rings, you open your
laptop.
But I kept writing my blog. Little pieces about ordinary people’s pain and the moments everyone
forgot.
One day, I posted a line.
“In that house, the warmth belonged to everyone else. I was just extra furniture. All I could do was
stand there and watch.”
The comments exploded.
Thousands of people said they felt the same.
They clicked through to my other posts. So many of them said they saw themselves in my words.
I almost cried.
Not because the blog was finally getting attention. Because I realized how many people out there were just like me-forgotten in the corners, but still fighting.
After that, I started writing more carefully.
When spring came, I sold the cardboard boxes and bottles the landlady had stacked in the yard.
With that money, I dug up a small vegetable patch.
While I was doing it, she stood there and asked me coldly, “You know how to grow anything?”
I shook my head and smiled. “Teach me?”
She snorted and walked away.
When she came back, she had seed packets in her hand. She shoved them and some tools at me. “You’re taking over my yard. You better learn.”
That summer, our vegetables came in like crazy.
Around the same time, my blog took off.
Every post got tens of thousands of shares and comments.
The private message notifications went from a few to dozens to hundreds to thousands.
Then one day, my mom found my blog. I don’t know how.
She called.
The second I picked up, her voice cut like a knife. “Elara! You go online and air our dirty laundry over something that small? Are you doing this on purpose? Does it make you happy?”
I didn’t get mad. I just said, “I wasn’t talking about you. I was writing about my own life. You’re the one putting yourself in it.”
The line went quiet.
I said, “If you don’t think you did anything wrong, why do you feel guilty?”
She choked for a second. Then she spat out, “You’re twisted. If I’d known you’d turn out like this, I never would’ve had you.”
I hung up.
Another six months passed.
I had the vegetable patch looking good. Tomatoes fruiting, greens growing in waves. I added some flower pots to the corners. The whole courtyard started to feel like something.
The landlady and I got closer.
She still didn’t smile much, but every night I came home late from work, a light was on for me in the yard.
There was food on the stove, covered with a cloth. Sometimes a casserole. Sometimes chicken noodle soup.
I brought her things too. Scarves, thick socks, fleece slippers.
Every time, she’d frown and say, “Young people don’t know how to save money. So wasteful.”
But I saw her eyes get red.
By my second spring, I’d hit ten million followers.
People called me a “famous relationship blogger.”
A platform invited me on a talk show. I said yes.
On air, I talked about how ordinary people get hurt by their families. The host asked about mine.
I just smiled. I didn’t tell the story.
“Some wounds,” I said, “you can write for yourself. But you don’t get to seil them.”
After the episode aired, Aria panicked first.
