For two days, there was radio silence. I stared at my phone, wondering if I should call back, wondering if I was the monster she thought I was. The guilt began to gnaw at me, a slow burn in the pit of my stomach.
Then the notifications started. My phone lit up like a Christmas tree, but these weren’t festive messages. Extended family members I hadn’t spoken to in months were suddenly sliding into my DMs.
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“How could you steal from an orphan?” one aunt wrote. Another cousin posted a vague status update about “greedy relatives” who “hoard what doesn’t belong to them.” My niece had been busy.
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She had told everyone a twisted version of the truth. In her story, I was the villain sitting on a dragon’s hoard of gold, wrongfully denying her a future. She made it sound like I was legally obligated to pay.