“How selfish you are,” Brin muttered, blowing on her wet nails. “You don’t want me to be famous. I’ll buy you a car when I’m rich.”
“Simone,” my mother said, her voice taking on that familiar tone, the one that mixed guilt with command, “you’re the strong one. You’re smart. You can always find a way. You can work another year, go to night classes. But Brin—she’s delicate. This is her dream. You wouldn’t want to crush your sister’s dream, would you? Families sacrifice for each other.”
I gave them the money.
Of course I did.
I had been conditioned for eighteen years to believe that my value lay solely in what I could provide. I was the workhorse, the mule, the fixer. Brin was the golden child, the star, the one who deserved to shine.
Brin went to Miami.
She wasn’t hired.
She spent the money on clothes and theme parks.
I spent the next year working double shifts at a restaurant to earn it back. I started college a year late, exhausted but determined.
That dynamic never changed.
It only evolved.
When I graduated at the top of my class, my mother didn’t come to the ceremony because Brin was having severe anxiety over a two-week breakup with a boyfriend. I walked across that stage alone.
When I got my first big promotion at a financial consulting firm, my mother said, “That’s great, honey. Hey, can you loan Brin two thousand dollars? Her landlord is being awful.”
I paid Brin’s rent.
I paid for her car repairs.
I paid for acting classes she never attended.
I bought my mother a condo so she wouldn’t have to worry about stairs.
I thought I was buying their love. I thought that if I just gave enough, worked enough, fixed enough problems, they would finally look at me the way they looked at Brin. I thought one day my mother would look at my face and say, I’m so proud of you, Simone. You are my joy.
But I was never her joy.
I was her electric bill.
I was her safety net.
Then I met Marcus.
He was charming, ambitious, and seemed to see me. He told me I was brilliant. He told me I was beautiful.
I didn’t realize then that he had the same calculating look in his eyes as my mother.
He didn’t see a soulmate.
He saw a host.
He saw a woman trained to give everything and ask for nothing in return.
He fit perfectly into the hollow space in my heart that my mother and sister had carved out. I married him, thinking I was building a new family, a better family.
Lying in the dark motel room, the revelation hit me with the force of a physical blow.
I had not escaped my family dynamic by marrying Marcus.
I had recreated it.
Marcus was the golden child, demanding adoration and resources. I was still the workhorse, toiling in the shadows to keep the lights on. And Brin—Brin was merely the inevitable conclusion. The two parasites in my life had finally found each other.
You’re the strong one, Simone.
My mother’s voice echoed in my memory.
Well, she had been right about one thing.
I was strong.
Strong enough to carry them for forty years.
And now, God help them, I was strong enough to let go.
I sat up on the bed, the metal springs squeaking.
I wasn’t going to cry anymore.
The sadness was gone, replaced by a cold, clinical clarity.
They wanted delicate Brin. They wanted dreamer Marcus.
Fine.
They could have each other.
But they could not have my money.
