”
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.
