The night my sister forgot to lock her iPad, I found the group chat my family never meant me to see. In it, they mocked me, used me, and joked that I’d keep funding their lives if they faked love well enough. I said nothing. I let them feel safe.

At 8:12 on a Tuesday night, I was standing in my sister Lauren’s kitchen in Columbus, Ohio, holding her unlocked iPad in both hands while a pot of boxed macaroni boiled over on the stove. I had only picked it up because it wouldn’t stop buzzing. I thought maybe one of her kids’ schools was calling again. Instead, I saw the group chat title: Family Only. My name wasn’t in it.

The first message I read was from my mother.

Martha: She’s just a doormat. She’ll keep paying our bills if we pretend to love her.

Then my brother Daniel replied with a laughing emoji.

Daniel: Exactly. Amelia needs to feel needed. That’s her weakness.

Lauren had answered two minutes later.

Lauren: Don’t push too hard this month. She covered Mom’s electric and my car note already.

I stood there completely still while steam from the stove fogged the screen. My thumb kept scrolling anyway.