My name is Emily, and I’m 28 years old. I’ve always been the kind of person who tries to do right by my family, even when it comes at my own expense.
Maybe it’s because I was raised to believe that family sticks together no matter what, or maybe it’s because, deep down, I thought if I kept helping them, they’d eventually appreciate me.
Spoiler alert: they didn’t.
For the past few years, I’ve been letting my younger cousin Lisa live in my house rent-free. Lisa is 23, and if I had to describe her in one word, it would be entitled. She’s the type of person who treats generosity like an expectation rather than a kindness. If you give her something once, she’ll assume she deserves it forever.
At first, I didn’t think much of it. Lisa had just finished college and didn’t have a job lined up. She told me she just needed a few months to get on her feet, and, well, I had a spare room, so why not? I wasn’t struggling financially, and I figured I could help her out. That’s what family does, right?
But a few months turned into a year, then another. Lisa made no real effort to find a steady job. She worked part-time here and there, mostly for spending money, but she never contributed a single cent toward rent, utilities, or even groceries.
And the worst part? She never even acted grateful. No thank you, no offers to help around the house, nothing. If I so much as asked her to do the dishes, she’d groan and roll her eyes like I was being unreasonable.
At first, I let it slide. I told myself she was just immature, that she’d grow out of it. But then the little things started adding up.
Like the time I came home after a 10-hour shift to find her sitting on the couch surrounded by takeout containers from my favorite restaurant, food I had been saving for myself. When I asked her about it, she just shrugged.
“I thought you wouldn’t mind,” she said.
Or the time she borrowed my car without asking and returned it with an empty gas tank, only to get annoyed when I told her she had to fill it up next time.
“Geez, Em, it’s not like you’re broke or anything,” she huffed.
And don’t even get me started on how she treated my house like a free Airbnb. She’d invite her friends over without telling me, and I’d wake up to strangers lounging in my living room. Once, I found one of her friends rummaging through my fridge at 2 a.m. like he was the one paying for groceries.
I should have put my foot down sooner. I know that now. But the thing is, my family wasn’t exactly on my side.
Anytime I so much as hinted that Lisa should start paying for something, my aunt, her mom, would call me up with the usual guilt trip.
“Oh, sweetie, she’s still so young. You know how hard it is to get started these days. You have a good job, don’t you? What’s a little kindness?”
And if I pushed back:
“Lisa looks up to you, Emily. If you kick her out, she’ll feel so abandoned.”
Even my mom, who’s usually pretty reasonable, would say things like, “Just be patient with her, Em. You know how she is. She doesn’t mean to take advantage of you.”
But she did mean to.
I realized that the night I got the video.
It was my uncle, the one relative who actually had a backbone, who sent it to me. The video was taken at some party Lisa had gone to. In it, she was sitting with a group of her friends, laughing, and what she said made my stomach twist.
“Emily? Oh my God, she’s so dumb,” Lisa was giggling. “She’s been letting me live there for years for free. I don’t pay for anything. She’s too much of a pushover to ever kick me out. Like, she actually thinks I’m going to move out one day. Why would I? I’ve got it made.”
Her friends laughed along with her.
One of them said, “Damn, I need to find myself an Emily.”