Then here and there slowly turned into every weekend, every date night, every last minute emergency where somehow I was always the only solution. Megan would show up at the door already dressed for dinner, shove Ali’s backpack into my arms and say things like, “You’re home anyway.
It’s not a big deal. You know how tired I am.”
If I mentioned a paper due or an exam in the morning, she’d roll her eyes and tell me, “Sisters help each other. Do you think motherhood is easy?”
My mom, Linda, works nights as a nurse, and my dad, Rob, used to drive trucks and now dispatches, so most of the time they were either gone or exhausted.
It was easier for them to let me handle it, and they convinced themselves I didn’t mind.
The baby monitor in my room, the diaper bag in our hallway, the cartoons always playing in the background, they all became normal, like part of the furniture. I missed birthday dinners with friends, skipped study groups, and canceled dates because at the last minute, Megan would text, “Something came up. Can you please watch him?
I’ll owe you.”
A couple of months before graduation, after we had a break-in on our block, my dad installed a cheap security camera system in the house just in case and gave me access to the app on my phone, joking that I could spy on the dog while I was in class. At the time, it felt like another little piece of control I didn’t really own.
Then graduation came. I walked across the stage, shook hands, took the pictures in my cap and gown while my friend screamed my name from the stands.
After the ceremony, we all ended up at this little coffee shop in Wrigleyville where we used to cram for exams.
And for the first time in a long time, the conversation wasn’t about deadlines or babysitting schedules. My friend Tessa said she was scared that once we started our jobs, we’d never get a real break again. Jordan joked that we needed one last big memory before we got stuck in offices and routines.
The word just slipped out of my mouth without planning.
Italy.
I said it and everyone went quiet for a second.
I told them how I’d always dreamed of seeing Rome, Venice, the cliffs of Siniter, how my grandma had left me some graduation money, and I’d been saving everything from my part-time job.
Instead of laughing, they leaned in. We sat there for hours with our laptops, looking at flights and Airbnbs, splitting costs, realizing that if we were careful with money, we could actually make it happen. By the time the sun went down, our flights to Rome were booked for July, and we had a tiny apartment reserved near a cobblestone street I couldn’t even pronounce.
For the first time in years, I planned something that was just mine.
No nap schedules, no last minute texts, no guilt. All the way home on the train, my phone buzzed with group chat messages about pasta and photo spots and outfits.
I walked into my parents house that night with my cap still in my hand and this new fragile idea of freedom in my chest, ready to tell my family the good news. I honestly thought they’d be happy for me.
I had no idea that one simple sentence about a trip to Italy would light the fuse on everything that came next.
The night I told them about Italy was supposed to be a celebration.
My dad had fired up the grill in the backyard. My mom had laid out paper plates and salad and all the usual stuff, and Megan and her husband Ethan showed up with Olly bouncing on his hip, already sticky from whatever snack he’d had in the car.
I was still riding the high from graduation and the coffee shop and the flight confirmation email sitting in my inbox. We ate burgers and corn on the cob.
My dad made a cheesy toast about how proud he was that both his girls had turned out successful in their own ways.
And for a little while, it almost felt normal.
When we moved back inside to the dining table for cake, my mom set her phone up to record, wanting more videos for Facebook. I remember thinking it was kind of overkill, but I didn’t say anything. When everyone settled, my dad asked, “So, what’s next for you, kiddo?”
That was my moment.
I took a breath and smiled.
Actually, I said, “I’m going to Italy this summer. Rome, then Venice, then down the coast.”
There was this split second of silence where I could see Ethan look impressed. My dad’s eyebrows lift.
My mom’s smile freezed just a little. Then Megan’s chair scraped against the floor.
Italy, she repeated like it was a dirty word.
When I told her the dates, still not connecting the dots, still thinking she’d say something like, “That’s amazing. You deserve it.”
Instead, her face tightened.
“You’re kidding,” she said.
“You do remember that’s when Ethan and I are going to Florida, right? You’re supposed to be here with Ollie.”
The word supposed hit me like a slap. No one had actually asked me.
They had just decided.
I shook my head.
“I didn’t know,” I said. “We just booked everything today. I’ve been saving up for months.
I thought you’d be happy for me.”
Megan laughed, but there wasn’t anything funny in it.
“Happy that you’re ditching your family to go drink wine in Europe while we’re stuck figuring out child care?”
She said, “We planned this trip, Ava. Marriage needs time away. You can go to Italy some other year.”
My stomach dropped.
I tried to keep my voice steady.
“I’ve literally rearranged my life around watching Ali for years,” I said. “I’ve canled dates, stayed up all night finishing assignments because you dropped him off last minute. I’m not canceling this.
For once, this is about me.”
My mom put her fork down and folded her arms.
“That tone,” she said quietly. “That’s not how you talk when your sister is asking for help. Family comes first.
You live here. You don’t pay rent. The least you can do is support your sister when she needs you.”
I felt my face heat up.
I wanted to say that staying there wasn’t exactly free, that the price had always been being on call whenever Megan snapped her fingers, but the words stuck in my throat.
Megan leaned forward, eyes flashing.
“You’re being selfish,” she said. “Do you think it’s easy raising a kid and working full-time? We don’t get to just run off to Italy.
You’re young. You’ll have plenty of time to travel right now. Your nephew needs you.”
Ethan shifted in his seat, clearly uncomfortable, but he didn’t jump in.
My dad stared at his plate like it could save him from choosing a side.
I took a breath and forced myself not to back down the way I usually did.
“I’m noting,” I repeated. “I’m going. I’ve already paid.
My friends have already paid. You’ll have to find another solution this time.”
The room went quiet. The only sound was Olly humming to himself, dragging a toy car across the table.
My mom’s jaw clenched.
“If you walk out on your family for some vacation, don’t expect everyone to keep bending over backward for you.”
She said it felt almost funny hearing that when I was the one who’d been bent out of shape for years.
I didn’t say that out loud. I just said, “I’m still going,” and stood up to clear my plate because my hands needed something to do.
For the next 2 weeks, the house felt different. Megan stopped texting me for help.
There were no surprise drop offs, no last minute demands. My mom was cool and polite. My dad stayed later at work.
And every time I walked into a room, conversation seemed to die mid-sentence.
You’d think that would have been a relief, not having to watch Olly all the time. But it wasn’t. It felt like the air before a thunderstorm, heavy and waiting.
I told myself they were just mad, that they’d get over it, that once I was on a plane to Rome, they’d realize I was serious about my own life.
Looking back, I should have known Megan wasn’t the type to accept no as an answer. She’d stop asking me with words. She was already figuring out how to take the choice away from me completely.
The day before my flight to Rome started out almost boring, which is funny when I think about how it ended.
I worked a short shift at the coffee shop near campus, making cappuccinos for people who had no idea I was about to leave the country for the first time in my life.
My friends kept sending links to Italian street food and Tik Toks of people riding gondilas. And every time my phone buzzed in my apron pocket, I felt this little spark in my chest.
After work, I rode the train home, staring at my reflection in the window, trying to imagine myself as someone who actually got on planes and went places instead of someone who always stayed behind.
When I walked into the house, my mom was at the kitchen table paying bills. My dad was in the living room, half asleep in front of the TV, and the hallway smelled like laundry detergent.
It felt normal enough that I let myself relax.
I said hi, told my mom I was going to finish packing, and headed down the hall to my room. My suitcase was open on the bed, clothes folded as neatly as I could manage, chargers and adapters in a side pocket. I checked my email again to make sure my flight was still on time, then reached into the top drawer of my desk for the little zip pouch where I kept my passport.
I unzipped it, touched the navy cover, and for a second, I just stood there smiling to myself.
I walked to the bathroom to grab a travel-sized toothpaste and tossed it into my toiletry bag.
I could see myself in the mirror, hair pulled back, dark circles under my eyes from weeks of work and finals and family drama, but my smile looked different. I looked like someone who might actually get out.
I didn’t even hear Megan coming down the hallway.
One second, I was flipping the passport open to my picture. The next, her hand shot past my shoulder and ripped it out of my fingers.
I spun around.
“What are you doing?” I asked, already reaching for it.
She held it just out of reach, eyes flat and cold.
“Making sure you remember your place,” she said.
And before my brain could catch up, she bent the passport, tore it straight down the middle with a sharp, ugly sound, and let the pieces fall into the toilet bowl behind her.
My stomach dropped.
“Megan, stop,” I said, stepping forward.
But she just looked at me for a long second, then pressed the flush handle with one slow, deliberate push.
The water roared, the paper swirled, and my future went in circles right along with it.
“There’s no trip,” she said quietly, that same little smirk tugging at her mouth.
“Your job is staying home with my kid.”
I heard my mom’s voice from the hallway without even seeing her face.
“Exactly. You should stay. Family comes first.”
Somewhere behind her, from the living room, there was this ripple of laughter, like someone had told a joke I’d missed.
Like my entire life wasn’t just circling the drain.
For a second, I couldn’t move.
I saw the small security camera my dad had installed at the end of the hall blinking its tiny red light, but it felt like it was watching someone else’s disaster, not mine.
I thought about the late nights at the coffee shop, the graduation money my grandma had left me, the way my friends had lit up when I said the word Italy. I thought about every time I’d said yes to Megan, every time I’d been told that was what good family did.
My hands were shaking, but my voice was calm when I finally spoke.
“You know that’s not your decision to make,” I said.
Megan rolled her eyes.
“Grow up, Ava. You live here.
You don’t pay rent. You were never going to just walk away from your responsibilities. Now you don’t have to pretend.”
I looked at her, at my mom standing behind her with her arms crossed, at the faint reflection of myself in the bathroom mirror.
Then I turned, walked past them down the hall into my bedroom.
I grabbed my backpack, shoved my laptop, charger, a couple of changes of clothes, and my wallet inside. My suitcase sat open on the bed with neatly folded outfits I might never wear in Italy, but I left it there.
When I walked back the shuss through the living room, my dad looked up confused.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Out,” I said. “Just out.”
Megan snorted.
“You’re not going anywhere without a passport,” she called after me.
I didn’t answer.
I stepped out onto the porch, felt the evening air hit my face, and closed the door behind me.
I didn’t have a plan. I just knew I wasn’t staying in that house one second longer.
What I didn’t realize in that moment was that the same little camera my dad had installed just in case had caught everything, and that the thing they had used to box me in was about to become the thing that finally set me free.
I didn’t get very far before the shock faded and the anger kicked in. By the time I reached the bus stop at the end of our street, my hands were still shaking, but my brain had finally started connecting dots.
I called my friend Tessa.
The second she heard my voice, she said, “What happened?”
I told her everything in one breathless rush. From the fight at dinner to my sister ripping my passport and flushing it.
There was a pause.
Then she said, “Ava, that’s not just messed up. That’s illegal.
You’re coming here now.”
She texted her address again just in case, and I rode the bus across the city with my backpack on my lap, replaying my sister’s smirk, my mom’s voice, my dad’s confused face.
At Tessa’s apartment, she shoved a mug of tea into my hand and made me sit on her couch while I went through it again, slower this time.
When I mentioned the little red light on the hallway camera, she stopped me.
“Wait, you have security cameras in the house. You can access them, right?”
I blinked.
Yeah, my dad gave me the app when he installed them.
Why?
Tessa stared at me like I just handed her the answer.
Because your sister didn’t just ruin your trip. She destroyed a federal document on purpose.
You don’t just swallow that. You call the police.
The word police made my stomach twist. Where I grew up, you only called them when something was on fire or bleeding.
And even then, someone tried to talk you out of it in the name of keeping the peace.
But then I heard my sister’s voice in my head. That casual grow up. You live here like she owned me.
And something inside me hardened.
I opened the app and scrubbed back through the footage to the time I’d gotten home.
It was all there, grainy, but clear. Me walking down the hall, her slipping in after me, the bathroom door, her holding the passport up and tearing it. The flush.
Watching it from the outside made my chest hurt all over again, but it also did something else.
It made it undeniable.
This wasn’t a misunderstanding or an accident.
She knew exactly what she was doing.
Tessa sat next to me and put her hand over mine when I dialed the non-emergency number. I gave them my name, my parents’ address, and told the dispatcher that my passport had been intentionally destroyed by a family member, and that there was security footage of the whole thing.
The dispatcher asked a few basic questions, then said they’d sent an officer by to take a report. Hearing those words felt unreal, like this was happening to a character on TV, not me.
The next afternoon, I went back to my parents house with a uniformed officer standing on the porch beside me.
My dad opened the door, eyes wide, wiping his hands on a dish towel.
“Ava, what on earth is going on?”
The officer introduced himself, explained why he was there, and asked if we could step inside to view the footage.
My mom appeared in the hallway, face going pale when she saw the badge.
My sister came down the stairs a minute later, hair in a messy bun, leggings and an oversized sweatshirt, and froze when she saw me in the officer.
“What is this?” she demanded. “Some dramatic stunt because you’re mad.”
I didn’t answer. I just opened the app and handed my phone to the officer.
We watched the video together in heavy silence, the wide-angle view of the hallway showing every step, every gesture.
When the sound of the toilet flushing filled the living room, my dad shut his eyes like someone had hit him.
The officer asked me a few more questions, then turned to my sister.
“Ma’am, do you deny that this is you destroying your sister’s passport?”
She sputtered something about it being a joke, about not realizing how serious it was, about me leaving things where her kid could get them. But the footage didn’t back her up.
The officer kept his tone flat.
Either way, ma’am, this is destruction of property and in this case, a government document. A report has to be filed.
There may be charges and fines. You’ll receive further notice.
He handed me a card with a case number and instructions on using the report to apply for a replacement passport. When he left, the front door closing sounded louder than usual.
Nobody spoke for a long moment.
Then my dad cleared his throat.
“living room,” he said.
“Now.”
10 minutes later, we were all sitting around a table in a cheap diner downtown, the kind with cracked vinyl booths and burnt coffee. My dad had insisted we not have this conversation in the house. Maybe because he didn’t trust himself not to yell.
Maybe because he didn’t want the neighbors to hear.
Ethan had met us there straight from work, still in his button-down shirt, clearly confused and tense.
My dad set his hands flat on the table, looked straight at my sister, and said, “I watched that video three times. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
She crossed her arms, eyes shiny but defiant.
“I was stressed,” she said. “I didn’t mean for it to go that far.
She left the passport out. I just wanted her to understand she can’t walk away from her responsibilities. I worked my whole life to help this family and now she thinks she’s better than us because she’s going to Italy.”
My mom stayed quiet, staring at her napkin.
Ethan looked from her to me to my dad.
Responsibilities. My dad repeated, “Your responsibility is your son, your job, your marriage, not your sister’s entire life. destroying her passport and dragging the police into it.
That’s not stress. That’s selfishness.”
My sister’s voice rose. So what?
She gets to run off to Europe while we scramble for child care and I’m the selfish one. She lives in your house for free. She doesn’t pay for anything.
She owes this family.
I finally spoke up. My voice low.
I owe you four years of last minute babysitting. Missed classes, canceled plans, I said.
And you paid me back by flushing the first real thing I’ve ever done for myself. You didn’t even ask. You just decided.
Ethan swallowed hard, eyes on his wife.
You destroyed her passport, he said quietly.
On purpose. You didn’t tell me.
Her face crumpled a little, but she kept pushing.
I didn’t think they’d take it so seriously, she said. I didn’t think it would go this far.
It’s just a passport. She can get another one.
My dad shook his head.
With what money? He asked.
She used her savings for this trip. Your mother and I have been sending you $2,000 a month to help with your mortgage and daycare. Do you remember where that money comes from?
She frowned.
From you, she said. For the baby.
My dad leaned back, suddenly looking older.
From the same pot that was supposed to help both of my daughters get started in life, he said. From the same overtime shifts that kept me out on the road when Ava was a kid.
And I just watched you throw your sister’s future down the toilet because you couldn’t handle being told no.
The table went quiet.
Then he took a breath and said, “It stops today.”
She blinked. What does the money? He said, “The support, the 2,000 a month, it’s done.
We’re not paying your bills while you sabotage your own family.”
My mom looked up, but he held up a hand.
No, enough. Actions have consequences.
My sister’s mouth opened and closed.
You can’t just cut us off, she said. We have a house.
We have daycare. We have—
My dad cut in. You have a job.
or you did. Last I checked, you have a husband. You are not a helpless teenager.
You chose to do what you did. Now you can choose to fix it.
As for that money, he turned to me. It’s going to Ava now for at least the next year.
She’s going to need a new passport, new flight dates, and a place to live that isn’t full of people who think they own her.
I stared at him, stunned.
Dad, I started, but he shook his head.
No arguments. You didn’t ask for this. You didn’t call the police on a whim.
You did the only thing you could when your own family backed you into a corner. Let me do something right for once.
My sister finally started to cry. The sound sharp and ugly in the small diner.
You’re choosing her over me, she said.
After everything I’ve done, after giving you a grandson, after—
My dad’s voice was quiet but final.
I’m choosing what’s right, he said. And what’s right is not rewarding you for flushing your sister’s future.
For the first time in a long time, I felt something other than guilt sitting at that table. Small and fragile, but real.
It felt a little bit like justice.
Fan six.
The fallout didn’t hit all at once.
It came in waves over the next few weeks, each one a little heavier than the last.
The day after the diner, my dad drove me to the courthouse so I could get a certified copy of the police report. We sat in hard plastic chairs while a clerk stamped papers and slid them across the counter. Seeing my name next to words like victim and damaged passport felt strange, but it was also proof that what had happened in that bathroom was real and wrong, no matter how anyone tried to spin it.
With the report in hand, I made an appointment at the passport agency downtown.
The expedited service wasn’t cheap, and the clerk warned me it might still take a few weeks, but at least there was a path forward.
On the train home, my dad stared out the window at a city he’d driven through a thousand times in a truck and finally said, “I should have stepped in sooner. I let things go because I was tired because it was easier and I’m sorry.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just nodded.
That same week, my sister got her first official notice in the mail about the charges and fines. She called my dad in a panic, crying about how it was going to ruin her record, how it might show up on background checks.
I only heard his side of the call, but his voice stayed steady.
“You did this,” he said. “We can’t make it disappear. You need to get a lawyer and figure it out.”
A few days later, the next wave hit.
Her company did periodic background checks for people in management, and the new incident popped up fast. HR called her into a meeting. Ethan told me later she tried to frame it as a family misunderstanding that got blown out of proportion.
But destruction of a government document and police report aren’t words you can pretty up.
They gave her a choice that wasn’t really a choice. Resign quietly now or be terminated when the internal process was done.
She came home with a cardboard box of office decorations and a look on her face I’d never seen before, brittle and hollow.
Losing the 2,000 a month from my parents had already stretched them thin. Losing her salary on top of that was like yanking the tablecloth out from under a full set of dishes.
The mortgage, daycare, car payment, legal fees, they all stayed the same while the income shrank.
Ethan picked up extra hours and side projects, but there’s only so much one person can do. You could feel the strain in the way he spoke. Shorter sentences, longer silences.
One night, he showed up at my parents house alone.
I was at the kitchen table with my laptop filling out job applications when he knocked on the back door.
“Can we talk?” he asked.
I made him coffee because that’s what I do when I don’t know what else to do, and we sat across from each other at the same table where my mom had once lectured me about family coming first.
I didn’t know she did that to your passport, he said finally. If I had, I wouldn’t have let it get this far.
I believed him, but it didn’t erase the years of me being free child care. While he looked the other way, I told him that as gently as I could.
He nodded.
I know, he said.
That’s on me. I should have stepped in sooner, too.
But this, the police, the charges, losing her job, it’s like she doubled down on every bad habit she’s ever had. I’ve asked her to go to therapy, to apologize, to take real responsibility, and she keeps saying, “If you hadn’t called the cops, none of this would have happened.”
He looked exhausted.
“I don’t know if I can do this forever,” he said.
I don’t know if I can raise Ali with someone who thinks destroying her own sister’s life is acceptable as long as it keeps things easy for her.
A month later, he moved into a small apartment closer to his office. They started a trial separation. Oliver split his time between them, dragging his stuffed dinosaur back and forth in a little backpack, too young to understand custody, just knowing that sometimes daddy wasn’t there at night.
While their life cracked, mine quietly started to take shape.
The first transfer of $2,000 hit my account the Friday after the diner.
My dad texted me a screenshot with a simple, “Remember, this is a reset, not a gift. Use it to get out, to get ahead.”
I did exactly that. I put down a deposit on a tiny studio in Lincoln Park.
Nothing fancy, just a clean room with a window over a tree, and enough space for a bed, a desk, and a secondhand couch. The first night, I slept there on an air mattress, listening to distant traffic instead of my nephew’s cartoons.
I felt more alone and more free than I ever had.
During the day, I sent out portfolio samples to every agency that might need a junior copywriter. A few weeks later, a midsized agency in the loop emailed me.
They liked my work. They wanted an interview.
I wore the only blazer I owned, rode the train downtown, and sat in a glasswalled conference room talking about brand voice and storytelling while the whole mess with my family hummed in the background of my mind like static.
Two days later, they offered me the job. It wasn’t glamorous or huge money, but it was mine, with my name on the email signature, not tied to anyone else’s schedule.
When my new passport finally arrived, I stood in my little studio holding it for a full minute before I opened it, half convinced it would vanish if I blinked.
Inside was my picture, my name, proof that no matter what my sister had tried to do, she hadn’t erased my future.
I snapped a photo and sent it to our Italy group chat. The replies came in fast, full of all caps and emojis. We’d already decided to push the trip back a few months to give me time to sort everything out.
Now it felt real again.
At my parents house, things shifted, too.
My mom started calling more, her voice softer than it had been in a long time. The first time she came to see my new place, she stood in the doorway with a grocery bag full of cleaning supplies and snacks like an apology.
“I’m not saying I was right,” she said, setting them down. “I know I wasn’t.
I just kept thinking about how tired your sister was, how hard it is to be a mom, and I forgot you were drowning, too.”
I didn’t let her off the hook, but I told her how it felt to be told I owed them my life because I slept under their roof. How family comes first had started to sound less like love and more like a threat.
She actually listened and didn’t defend herself.
“I should have protected you,” she said quietly, not joined in.
Hearing that didn’t erase what she’d done, but it was a start.
My sister stayed away. Sometimes her name popped up on my phone with a missed call or a text that said, “Can we talk?” or “I never meant for it to get this bad.”
Most of the time I let it sit.
When I did reply, I kept it short. I told her I hoped she was getting help, that Ali didn’t deserve to grow up watching people use love as leverage, and that I wasn’t ready to sit across from her and pretend everything was fine just because we shared blood.
Actions have consequences. She was living through hers, and for once, the consequences I was living through felt more like choices.
As summer edged into fall, my days filled with new routines.
Mornings on the train to the loop. Scribbling taglines in a notebook. Lunch breaks in the park with co-workers who knew me as Ava the copywriter.
Not Ava the built-in babysitter. Evenings in my studio cooking cheap pasta and scrolling through photos of Rome, Venice, and Sinceter, counting down to the day I’d see them in real life.
When my phone buzzed, it wasn’t always someone needing something. Sometimes it was just friends or my dad asking if I’d eaten.
The chaos my sister unleashed trying to keep me stuck had blown the walls off the box she’d kept me in.
She wanted to make sure I couldn’t leave. In the end, she was the one trapped at home facing the life she’d built, and I was the one finally learning what it felt like to move.
Three months later, I was standing in line at O’Hare with my new passport in my hand and a backpack on my shoulders. And for the first time since all of this started, there was nothing anyone could do to stop me.
Tessa waved at me from the check-in queue.
Jordan was already filming everything on his phone, and Malik and Priya were arguing about who was going to fall asleep first on the plane. When the agent stamped my passport and handed it back, it felt like a quiet kind of victory. Nothing dramatic, just a simple thump that said, “You’re really going.”
The flight to Rome was a blur of bad airplane movies and nervous excitement.
When we finally stepped out into the humid Italian air, and I heard people speaking a language I didn’t understand, my chest tightened in a good way.
We ate pasta in tiny restaurants where the menus didn’t have English translations, got lost down narrow streets in Venice until we stumbled onto a canal lit up like a postcard, and hiked along the cliffs in Sinker with the sea spread out below us like it went on forever.
There were moments when I would catch myself reaching for my phone out of habit, expecting a text from Megan asking if I could watch Ali or from my mom asking me to rearrange my plans. The messages I actually saw were pictures of my nephew at the park sent by my dad and blurry selfies from my co-workers back in Chicago laughing about some inside joke at the office.
Nobody was trying to guilt me into coming home early. Nobody was telling me I was selfish for being there.
One afternoon, sitting on a stone step in Rome eating gelato that was melting down my wrist, Tessa nudged me.
Do you regret anything?
she asked.
I thought about that bathroom, the sound of tearing paper. My mom’s voice saying, “Family comes first” like a command instead of comfort. I thought about the nights in my studio, quiet and lonely and mine.
I thought about Ali, who hadn’t asked for any of this, and Megan, who was finally having to stand on her own feet.
I shook my head.
I regret not saying no sooner, I said. That’s it.
When I got back to Chicago, the city felt different, even though nothing had really changed. My studio was still small, my job still demanding, my bank account far from impressive.
But I walked up the stairs to my place with a suitcase full of dirty clothes and a phone full of photos.
And I didn’t feel like I was sneaking back into someone else’s life.
I felt like I was returning to my own.
My mom came over for dinner a few days later and listened to my stories with a kind of quiet pride that didn’t have strings attached this time. My dad asked to see the passport stamp and joked about how maybe one day he’d get on a plane, too.
Megan texted me a picture of Olly holding a crayon drawing of a plane with my name scribbled on top.
“He misses you,” she wrote.
I stared at the screen for a long time before replying.
I miss him, too, I said. I’m open to seeing him.
But I won’t be your built-in babysitter again. If we’re going to have a relationship, it has to be one where you respect my boundaries.
There was a long pause, then a simple reply.
I know, she wrote. I’m working on it.
I don’t know exactly what our relationship will look like in 5 years or 10.
Maybe we’ll rebuild something healthier. Maybe we’ll always keep a little distance.
What I do know is this.
Family is not a free pass to break you. Loving someone doesn’t mean letting them use you.
And being related to someone doesn’t give them the right to flush your future down the toilet and call it sacrifice.
Sometimes the most loving thing you can do for yourself and for them is say no and mean it.
If you’re listening to this and you’ve been told that choosing your own life makes you selfish, hear me clearly. You are allowed to have dreams that don’t revolve around other people’s comfort. You are allowed to set boundaries and keep them even when it makes people angry.
And if the only way someone knows how to keep you close is by cutting up your wings, maybe the bravest thing you can do is step back, rebuild, and learn to fly anyway.
