So I learned to stop asking as often.
I learned how easy it was for help to become expectation when nobody was required to say where the boundary was.
A bill became another bill.
A favor became a responsibility.
A temporary problem became my problem.
And because I could handle it, everyone seemed to assume I should.
But buying the apartment was different.
This was not money sitting loosely in an account while someone else had an emergency.
This was four years of my life converted into a home.
It was something I had planned for deliberately.
Something I had earned without taking anything from them.
So when Dad ordered me to sell it, I gave him an answer that was only one word long.
“No.”
His chair crashed backward.
He stood so quickly that the entire mood in the room changed.
“You think because you have some fancy finance job you’re better than us?”
