“Yes,” I admitted.

She nodded once, like that made complete sense. Then she climbed onto the couch, wrapped herself in a blanket, and fell asleep watching cartoons with one hand still curled around her stuffed rabbit.

That night, after she was asleep, I opened my phone and saw the first message from Marissa.

No apology.

No explanation.

Just one line.

You should be used to being left out by now.

I stared at it until the words blurred.

Then I opened our family group chat, the one where I had spent years being useful, available, and endlessly patient. The one where I had booked hotel rooms, covered deposits, fixed mistakes, sent money, and said yes when I wanted to say no.

Everyone had gone silent.

As if leaving me at the airport was just another thing they could do without discussion.

I went to the kitchen, set the phone on the counter, and stood there in the dark until the anger finally rose up through the grief. It was hot, clean, and terrifying. Not the kind of anger that makes you scream. The kind that makes you very, very calm.

I remembered all the ways I had supported them. My mother’s utility bill when she “forgot” to pay it. My father’s prescription refill when his card was declined. Marissa’s subscription services, my brother’s emergency loan, the joint savings account I had helped keep alive because “family should help family.”

Family should help family.

Funny how that only seemed to work in one direction.

I typed back to Marissa:

Don’t worry. Your New Year is about to become unforgettable.

Then I opened my laptop.

I wasn’t doing anything illegal. I didn’t need to. Everything was tied to accounts I had helped manage, cards I had authorized, and contact information I had quietly handled for years because they had stopped bothering to learn the details. I changed passwords. I removed my payment methods. I canceled the subscriptions attached to my email. I locked down the shared cloud storage. I transferred the emergency fund back into the account that had been funded mostly by my paychecks and labeled, by me, for family use only.