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Rule Two: Share the Sleeping Arrangements
The house was crowded. There were no extra bedrooms. Nicole offered a rotation: Kayla would spend one month in Emily’s room, one month in Mason’s, and one month on the living room pull-out couch. Then the cycle would repeat. Everyone would share the burden equally.
To Nicole, it felt fair.
But she also knew, deep down, it would never feel like home to Kayla—not really.
Rule Three: Bring Yourself Into This House
Nicole wasn’t asking Kayla to perform. But she wanted effort. Once a week, Kayla was to contribute something personal to the household: a meal she liked, a movie she wanted to watch with everyone, a board game, even a new song. Just something that said, “I’m here.”
That was it. Three rules.
Not meant to punish. Just to connect.
Nicole presented them over dinner the following night. She didn’t make a big deal of it—no family meeting, no printed list. Just her, Derek, and Kayla at the table after the younger kids had gone upstairs.
Kayla listened quietly. Her face was blank. She nodded slowly, then excused herself. She said nothing.
Nicole sat there, fork in hand, unsure if she’d done the right thing.
The fallout didn’t happen overnight.
For a few weeks, things were civil. Kayla moved in. She brought a single duffle bag and a stack of books. She chose Mason’s room first—he was younger, less territorial.
On the first Sunday, Nicole found a note slipped under her door. Four sentences, handwritten:
“This week was okay. School is hard. I miss my cat. Thank you for letting me stay.”
Nicole read it three times. She smiled.
The next Sunday’s letter was shorter. Then one week, there was no letter at all.
The sleeping rotation didn’t last long, either. Emily complained about sharing space. Mason started sleeping on the floor in protest. And Kayla—well, she withdrew even further.
By week six, the unspoken tension in the house was thick. Derek noticed. He tried to intervene, suggesting a family game night. Kayla didn’t show.
One night, after Nicole asked Kayla to take out the trash, the girl snapped: “You only want me here if I follow your rules. If I don’t, I’m out, right?”
Nicole froze.
Derek heard. So did Emily, from upstairs.
That was the beginning of the unraveling.
Derek was furious. Not just at Nicole, but at the situation. “She’s a kid,” he said. “She doesn’t need rules to earn her place here. She’s not your tenant—she’s your daughter now.”
Nicole argued back. “I’m trying! I’m trying to give her structure, to help her feel part of this!”
But Derek didn’t hear it that way. And neither did Kayla.
The next day, the letters stopped. So did dinner at the table. Kayla retreated into her headphones and hoodie. When Derek tried to talk to her, she shut him out. Nicole stopped asking questions altogether.
The house, once loud and chaotic, fell silent.
Nicole often sat on the edge of her bed at night and wondered what she’d done wrong. Was it the rules? Was it the timing? Was she never supposed to be a “stepmom” in the first place?
She thought about her own childhood—divorced parents, new stepdads, strange houses. She remembered feeling like a guest in her own father’s living room.
Now she feared she was making Kayla feel the same.
One Saturday morning, she found Kayla asleep on the couch, her old duffle bag packed beside her. Derek was on the phone in the kitchen, whispering urgently. Kayla’s mom was coming to pick her up.
No one had discussed this with Nicole.
Kayla opened her eyes briefly and looked at her.
Nicole tried to speak, but nothing came out.
Kayla sat up, grabbed her bag, and said, “I don’t want to write letters anymore.”
Kayla left that afternoon.
She’s been back, occasionally—holidays, birthdays—but things have never been the same. She and Nicole are polite. Distant. The bridge Nicole tried to build with words and rules never fully formed.
Still, Nicole keeps the letters.
Every Sunday note, folded neatly in a shoebox under her bed. There are only five of them. But she rereads them sometimes.
In one, Kayla wrote: “I don’t know how to live in a place where I feel like I don’t belong. I’m trying. But I don’t know if it’s enough.”
Nicole reads that one the most.
She still hopes.
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