PART 7 – Every Receipt Reminded Me of Something I Had Given Up While My Family Enjoyed the Life My Money Helped Provide

I kept the laptop open.

I went through the records again.

This time, I wasn't looking only at the amounts.

I was remembering what had happened before and after each payment.

There was the Christmas dinner.

Sarah had complained that groceries were too expensive.

I offered to cover the turkey and several other things.

At the time, I thought I was making the holiday easier for everyone.

Now I remembered the message I'd seen earlier.

She didn't want to spend $150 herself.

There was the money for my mother's expenses.

I had believed it was going toward medical care.

The group chat showed that Cabo had been discussed instead.

Then there were Chloe's expenses.

Her textbooks.

Her food plan.

Her sorority dues.

I remembered how excited she had been when she first joined.

She called me because she wanted to participate but worried about the cost.

I sent money.

I didn't want her to feel excluded.

I remembered telling her to enjoy herself.

I had meant it.

I had wanted her to have good memories.

Now I wondered whether she had ever thought about the hours I worked to make those things possible.

I found another payment.

Then another.

Some of them were so ordinary that I had almost forgotten them.

But the records hadn't forgotten.

The dates were there.

The amounts were there.

My name was there.

I looked at my bank balance.

I thought about how many times I had checked it before buying something for myself.

I had compared grocery prices.

I had waited for discounts.

I had worn the same clothes repeatedly.

I had told friends I couldn't afford to join them.

And then I had transferred money to relatives who were buying expensive things.

The contrast was difficult to accept.

I wasn't angry about every dollar.

I was angry that I had been lied to.

I was angry that my concern had been used against me.

Most of all, I was angry that people who knew how hard I worked had found it entertaining to watch me struggle.

I closed the payment history.

Then I looked at the group chat again.

I could still see the messages about the Gucci bag.

Chloe had written about it as if my next holiday shift had already been converted into something she could spend.

I thought about my mother.

I thought about David.

I thought about Sarah and Olivia.

Aunt Renee was there too.

Not every relative had spoken in every conversation.

But they were members of the group.

They had seen what was being said.

They had allowed it to continue.

I couldn't tell myself that silence meant kindness.

It didn't.

I returned to the blank document.

I saved the records.

Then I checked the total one more time.

Over sixty thousand dollars.

I sat quietly for a while.

I didn't know what I would say to them.

I knew I couldn't send a message full of insults.

That wasn't what I wanted.

I wanted them to understand that the person they had been mocking was the same person who had been paying for their holidays.

I wanted them to see the connection.

The money.

The jokes.

The lies.

All of it.

I looked at the time.

It was still before sunrise.

I had spent the night discovering what my family thought of me.

Now I needed to decide what I thought of myself.

I closed the laptop halfway.

Then opened it again.

I wasn't finished.

Click here to continue reading: PART 8: Before the Sun Came Up, I Stopped Thinking About How to Keep Everyone Happy and Started Thinking About What I Would No Longer Pay For