Tyler didn’t let me off easy.
Last time, Oscar accidentally broke my watch. I barely frowned and she reacted by shoving me into the backyard pond. I wasn’t allowed to get out for a full day and night.
Fighting back tears of humiliation, I slowly knelt down in front of Tyler.
Oscar was still on video, watching from his end of the call as I bowed to the floor begging. He burst out laughing. Sharp gravel dug into my forehead. When I reached up to touch it, my fingers came away with blood.
Tyler giggled, trying to charm Oscar. “Now that’s more like it. That’s what I call a proper apology.”
“Ozy, don’t be mad anymore, okay? I’ll take you out for steak, buy you a new gift. I think Teddy’s learned his lesson.”
Oscar wasn’t finished. “No, Tyler, I still don’t think it’s enough!”
“Ozy, you’re still mad, right? What else should we do to punish him?” Then, like Tyler had completely snapped, she ground the heel of her shoe into my fingers.
Pain shot through my body like electricity, but when I opened my mouth to cry out, nothing came.
Oscar added, “Let’s have him sleep in the pig pen. Strip him down, make him walk home tomorrow.”
Tyler laughed into her hand like a schoolgirl. “Ugh, you’re awful… I love it.”
Her cousins didn’t hesitate. In seconds, they’d ripped off my clothes, leaving me curled up in a corner, doing whatever I could to hide what little dignity I had left.
After they ended the call, Tyler stood over me, looking at me condescendingly.
“Well, Teddy, you heard Ozy. You’ll be staying in the pig pen for a few days. When I’m in a good mood again, maybe I’ll let you out.”
I felt completely hollow. All I could do was clench my fists—trying to hang on to the last shred of self-respect I had left.
“Tyler,” I whispered, “I never thought you’d do this to me… After everything I’ve done for you… did it all mean nothing?”
For a brief moment, I saw a flicker of something in her eyes—maybe guilt, maybe memory—but it vanished just as quickly. Her cold, detached look returned.
“Whatever we had in the past doesn’t matter. Ozy’s the only one who matters now.”
“I’m done arguing with you. You stay here and think about what you’ve done. When you really understand your mistake, then maybe—maybe—you can come home.”
Tyler soon drove off afterward, leaving me behind like I was nothing. Just a naked man in a pigsty. My forehead and fingers throbbed with pain, the cold air biting at my skin. I was shivering, filth clinging to me like shame.
Then her cousin tossed a handful of slimy vegetable scraps over the fence. “Go on, eat up. This is what we feed the pigs here.”
He chuckled cruelly, then added, “Hard to believe, isn’t it? The great Mr. Campbell, sitting in my pigpen. You didn’t even look at me back when I asked to borrow money. Now look at you.”
I remembered how he used to gamble away everything. When he finally turned his life around, I bought him this land so he could start fresh with a small pig farm.
But clearly, to him, that meant nothing. One act of refusal, all those years ago, had turned into this deep, twisted grudge. Now, the very land I gifted him had become the place of my public humiliation.
The rotting scraps hit my shoulder, then slid off, mixing with the mud.
Trying to appeal to any shred of decency left in him, I called out weakly, “Brother, have you forgotten? If I hadn’t bought you this land, you wouldn’t even have this life!”
He crouched beside the pen, moonlight casting deep shadows across his bitter, contorted face.
“This land?” he spat. “You think that makes us even? If you’d just lent me the money when I needed it, I could’ve hit it big and bought a damn mansion by now.”
I trembled all over. Under the pale moonlight, his face—once vaguely familiar—now looked completely alien.
