Chapter 6
Around seven, my dad called.
I almost didn’t answer.
But some part of me needed to hear his voice.
“Liv,” he said, sounding older than I remembered. “What’s going on?”
“You saw the screenshot,” I replied. “You tell me.”
He sighed.
“Things were complicated back then. I was drowning in debt. Your mother made choices.”
“With my money,” I said. “With my future, without my consent.”
A pause.
Then a quiet admission.
“Yes.”
I waited for an apology.
It never came.
Instead, he said, “Your mother is devastated. Half the family isn’t coming. Your brother just left the house furious. Is this what you wanted?”
I looked around my crowded apartment.
People laughing.
Glasses clinking.
Children playing with wrapping paper on the floor.
It was messy, loud, and real.
“I wanted the truth,” I said. “Whatever comes with it is just consequence.”
“You’ve humiliated her,” he said. “She’s sitting at a table set for 20 and there are four of us here.”
For a second, guilt tried to claw its way in.
Then I remembered myself at eighteen, crying quietly because I couldn’t return to school while being told, “There’s nothing we can do.”
While my brother somehow got rescued from his third financial disaster.
I remembered her calling me too sensitive whenever she hurt me.
I remembered her saying, “No one needs you to come this Christmas.”
“Then she finally knows how it feels,” I replied. “Every year I sat at that table and felt like a placeholder. She chose this. I just stopped covering it up.”
He didn’t answer.
His silence told me he understood, even if he would never admit it.
“Merry Christmas, Dad,” I said, and hung up.
A few hours later, someone knocked on my door.
Loud.
Frantic.
Desperate.
For a second, my stomach dropped.
But when I opened it, it wasn’t my mother.
It was Ryan.
No coat.
Cheeks flushed from the cold.
A half-wrapped gift in his hands.
The hallway behind him was empty.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
His usual confidence was gone.
“Depends,” I said. “Are you here to drag me back to Mom’s table or to actually listen for once?”
He exhaled, shoulders sinking.
“I left,” he admitted. “She spent the whole dinner yelling about you, about how you ruined everything. She didn’t apologize, not once. I kept waiting. She just kept saying how embarrassed she was.”
“Embarrassed,” I repeated. “Not sorry.”
He nodded miserably.
“There’s a difference,” I said.
He looked at me then.
Really looked.
Like he was seeing me clearly for the first time.
“I… I didn’t know about the account,” he said quietly. “I mean, I knew Mom found money when I was in trouble, but I thought… I don’t know what I thought. That she had savings. That Dad helped. I didn’t realize she took it from you.”
“You never asked,” I replied. “You never wanted to know where your safety net came from.”
May you like
He flinched.
“You’re right,” he said. “I didn’t. That’s on me.”
