Then I looked right at Tyler and said, “Sure. I can help you the same way you’ve helped me.”
He smiled immediately. “See? I told you she’d come through.”
But I kept talking.
“I want the four thousand from my savings account back first. And the twelve hundred for your truck transmission. And the money Dad asked me to ‘forget about’ after you borrowed it for rent last spring.”
Tyler’s smile disappeared so fast it almost felt satisfying.
The whole table went dead quiet except for my aunt slowly setting her fork down.
Mom immediately started trying to smooth it over. “Honey, this isn’t the time—”
But honestly, there had never been a time. That was the whole problem.
Every holiday somehow became another public fundraiser for Tyler while everybody acted like I was cruel if I noticed.
Tyler laughed a little and said I was “keeping score again,” but his face had already gone red. I asked him calmly why somebody supposedly drowning financially always had new boots, concert tickets, and bottles of bourbon more expensive than my grocery budget.
That part hit harder than I expected.
Because even Dad finally looked down at Tyler’s boots.
Tyler started getting angry then. Talking louder. Saying family was supposed to help each other. Saying I embarrassed him in front of everybody.
I almost laughed at that.
He’d been embarrassing me for years. Just politely enough nobody wanted to call it that.
Then Dad quietly asked him if he’d really borrowed that much money from me.
Tyler didn’t answer right away, which honestly answered everything.
Nobody ate much dessert after that.
A week later Tyler texted me this long message about how I “blindsided” him at Christmas and turned the family against him. Buried in the middle of it was a promise to start paying me back fifty dollars at a time.
It’s been eight months.
I’ve gotten exactly one payment. Fifty dollars. Christmas morning.