Jason leaned against the counter, still smiling. “I mean, you make more money than us,” he said. “It’s not that big of a deal, right?” Not that big of a deal. I didn’t answer. I didn’t yell. I didn’t snatch the phone from his hand. I simply turned around and walked down the hallway to my sister’s room. She was still in bed. Propped up against the pillows. Scrolling TikTok. Laughing at something on her screen while my bank account was bleeding in real time.

“Did you give Jason my Amazon login?” I asked. She didn’t even pause the video. “Yeah,” she said. “He needed to get a few things. It’s his birthday, Em.” A few things. There it was again. I told her the amount. The full amount. $2,812.64. For one second, I thought she would sit up. I thought her face would change. I thought she would say, “What?” I thought she would be horrified. Instead, she laughed. Actually laughed. “It’s not that much,” she said. “Just let it go.”

Let it go. Those three words sank into me like a splinter. Let it go. Like I hadn’t paid her gas bill twice last month. Like I hadn’t covered her internet for half of last year. Like I hadn’t helped with groceries when she cried about being short on rent. Like I hadn’t given her my old Toyota Corolla when her car finally died. That car was worth at least ten thousand dollars. Easy. I didn’t sell it. I didn’t ask for payments. I didn’t make her sign anything. I just handed her the keys and said, “I want you and Jason to be okay.”

Because that’s what I always did. I helped. I fixed. I paid. I swallowed my frustration. I made excuses. I told myself family needed grace. And apparently, all that taught them was that I could be used without consequence. My sister finally looked up from her phone. “You’re being dramatic,” she said. Dramatic. I almost laughed. But nothing about me felt funny.

I looked at her. Then at Jason, who had followed me down the hall and was standing near the doorway with that same smug look on his face. Like this was entertainment. Like my anger was just another thing he could mock. I wanted to say so much. I wanted to tell her she was raising him to believe other people existed to serve him. I wanted to tell him theft didn’t become cute just because his mother approved it. I wanted to remind them both of every single time I had saved them from consequences. But I didn’t. Because suddenly, I understood something. They were not confused. They were not mistaken. They knew exactly what they had done. They just didn’t think I would do anything about it.