At my own graduation, my father slapped me so hard my cap hit the floor

Two days later, something unexpected happened.

Ethan showed up at my apartment.

He looked terrible. His eyes were red, and he kept glancing over his shoulder like someone was following him.

“I need to talk to you,” he said the moment I opened the door.

I almost closed it in his face, but something in his expression stopped me.

I let him in.

He sat on the couch, unable to look at me.

“They’re in a lot of trouble,” he said. “Mom and Dad. The police have already contacted them. Dad is panicking. Mom keeps saying everything is your fault.”

I crossed my arms.

“Why are you telling me this?”

Ethan finally looked up.

“Because I’m scared,” he admitted. “They’re trying to put everything on me. Mom told the police that I was the one who suggested taking your scholarship money. She said I forced them.”

I stared at him.

“Is that true?”

Ethan shook his head quickly.

“No. But… there’s something else.”

He took a deep breath.

“I have debts. A lot of them. Mom and Dad have been paying them off using money they took from you. That’s why they needed your scholarship so badly. They were using it to cover my mistakes.”

I felt my stomach drop.

“How much?” I asked.

Ethan looked down.

“Almost forty thousand dollars.”

For a moment, I couldn’t speak.

All this time, I thought they took my money out of pure cruelty.

But they had also been using it to bail out their precious son.

And now that everything was falling apart, they were trying to throw him under the bus too.

Ethan looked at me with genuine fear in his eyes.

“Mia… what do I do?”

I looked at my brother — the golden child who had finally realized the shine was fake.

“You tell the truth,” I said. “For once in your life, you tell the truth.”