Make it even.
I told her I had repaid the loan and overpaid it and I would not give another dollar or another hour.
She called me selfish under her breath and left.
That night my husband and I wrote a letter I never sent. Every hurt, every favor, every version of myself I had trimmed down over the years to stay acceptable in that family. I read it aloud once and then deleted it, because some words are not meant to be understood by the people who caused them. Some words exist only to free the person holding them.
I blocked the last numbers. My parents, my sister, the cousins who had watched and said nothing when it mattered, the group chat, every shared folder and every route back.
I expected guilt.
What I felt was relief so physical that I slept twelve hours straight for the first time in months.
