Chapter 2
The next morning, my phone started buzzing before my alarm went off.
Ryan.
Of course. He always appeared when Mom wanted something softened.
I let it ring twice, three times, then answered.
“What?” I said.
No hello. No fake sweetness.
Just that.
“Wow. Good morning to you, too.”
He scoffed lightly, then lowered his voice as he slipped into his favorite role.
Peacemaker.
“Look, Mom told me what happened. She didn’t mean it like that. You know how she gets when she’s stressed.”
There it was.
The classic family translation.
She hurt you, but don’t make a mess of it.
“She said, ‘No one needs me,’” I replied. “She meant it.”
He insisted. “She just doesn’t want drama this year. She’s tired. You know, she’s been doing this alone for years.”
I laughed sharply.
“Doing what alone? Ordering me around?”
He ignored that.
“Anyway, even if you’re not coming, can you at least help with the usual stuff? The group chats, the reminders, the playlist.”
“You’re kidding,” I cut in. “So, I’m not needed, but my work still is.”
Silence.
Then a frustrated exhale.
“Olivia, don’t be dramatic. This isn’t about you.”
My fingers dug into the edge of the counter.
“Really? Because she literally made it about me.”
Ryan continued as if reading from a script Mom had approved.
“Mom’s worried. She thinks you’re pulling away. She’s the one who paid for your college, your apartment deposit, everything. At least you could make Christmas easy on her.”
A bitter taste filled my mouth.
“Paid for my college,” I repeated. “You mean the college I dropped out of after one semester because there wasn’t enough money for me to go back?”
“Oh my God, not this again,” he muttered. “You know things were tight. She did what she had to do. She even used your fund when Dad’s business went south. For all of us. Stop acting like you’re the only victim.”
My brain stalled.
“What fund?”
There was a tiny pause, as if he realized too late what he’d said.
“Nothing. Look, forget it. Just can you send the reminder in the group? People are asking about the start time.”
But I wasn’t listening anymore.
My heart didn’t sink.
It hardened.
There had been a fund.
Money meant for me.
Money I had never seen.
“I have to go,” I said quietly, and hung up before he could reshape the story.
Later that day, I searched old emails and files for anything that might prove my instinct right. I found an old message from a bank we used when I was a teenager.
An account in my name, opened when I was a child.
Attached was a note: college savings for Olivia only.
The last transaction showed the account drained five years earlier.
The same year Ryan suddenly got rescued from a mess involving his credit cards.
The withdrawal authorization carried two names.
Mine and Margaret’s.
My signature looked wrong, sloppier than I remembered.
My hands shook, not from sadness, but clarity.
She hadn’t just cut me out of Christmas.
May you like
She had been cutting pieces out of my future for years.
And now she wanted me quiet and obedient for one more performance.
