While they were crammed into a humid, cheap room, snapping at each other, swatting at mosquitoes, and blaming the situation on everyone but themselves, I was drinking green tea and eating mochi in absolute luxury.
My parents had made a choice. They chose the wrong child to prioritize. They enabled a monster, fed her ego, and expected me to foot the bill. Now, stripped of my financial buffer, they were trapped in a tiny room with the very monster they created. The price of their betrayal was facing the naked, ugly truth about each other.
By the third day of their “vacation,” the dynamic shifted again. They stopped calling to yell at me. They stopped trying to demand their luxury hotel back. Reality had finally broken their pride.
My phone rang. It was my father.
I looked at the screen, watching his name flash. Their money was completely gone. The hostel was paid for, but they likely couldn’t afford food, let alone tourist attractions.
It was time to make my final decision.
Chapter 5: The Budget Flight
I let the phone ring four times before I calmly swiped the green button and brought the device to my ear.
“Hello?” I said, my voice steady, cool, and detached.
“Nina,” my father said.
His voice was a hollow shell of its former self. He sounded utterly exhausted, defeated, and broken. In the background, I could hear the rattling hum of a cheap, struggling ventilation fan and the distant, shrill voice of Talia complaining about something in the hallway.
“Nina, please don’t hang up,” Marek pleaded, his voice cracking. “We are sorry. We were so wrong. This… this trip is a nightmare. Talia has no money of her own, my cards are completely locked by the bank, and your mother hasn’t stopped crying for two days. We have eaten nothing but cheap bread and tap water. Please, sweetheart. Just get us out of here. Bring us home.”
I stayed silent for a long moment. I let him sit in the uncomfortable, humiliating silence of his own consequences. I didn’t feel a surge of victory; I just felt a profound, exhausting sadness that it had to come to this for them to respect me.
“I am not a travel agent, Dad,” I said quietly.
“I know, I know,” he stammered quickly. “We will pay you back every cent when we get home. I swear it. Just… please. We can’t stay here for another week. We will go crazy.”
“I will send three one-way tickets to your email address,” I said, my tone shifting into business mode. “You will pack your bags and go to the airport tomorrow morning.”
I heard a massive, shuddering sigh of relief over the phone. “Thank you, Nina. Thank you so much. I knew you wouldn’t leave us here. You’re still our good daughter. What time is the flight? Is it the same business class airline we flew here on?”
“Wait,” I interrupted, my voice sharpening like a blade. “Do not misunderstand me, Dad. I am not rewarding your betrayal. You are not flying business class.”
“What do you mean?” he asked nervously.
“I am booking you on the cheapest, most restrictive budget airline I can find on the internet,” I explained coldly. “It is a basic economy ticket. You have no seat selection. You have no checked baggage allowance—you will have to pay for those designer suitcases out of whatever pocket change you have left. The flight has three layovers: one in Istanbul, one in Dubai, and one in New York. The entire journey will take twenty-eight hours.”
“Twenty-eight hours?” my father gasped. “Nina, your mother’s back… Talia will lose her mind on a flight that long in economy!”
“If Talia needs more rest, she can get a job and upgrade her own seat,” I said, entirely unmoved by his panic. “And let me make one thing perfectly clear, Dad. This flight is the absolute last thing I am ever paying for. My role as this family’s ATM is permanently over. Do not ask me for money, do not ask me for favors, and do not expect me to attend Sunday lunch when you get back.”
“Nina, you can’t mean that…”
“The tickets will be in your inbox in ten minutes. Have a safe flight.”
I pulled the phone away and hit ‘End Call’ before he could utter another excuse.
I opened my laptop, found the most grueling, miserable, cramped budget itinerary available on Skyscanner, and booked three non-refundable tickets. It cost me barely a fraction of what the original business class seats had cost.
It showed growth, I realized. The old Nina would have forgiven them, booked the direct flight, and apologized for overreacting. But I didn’t leave them to die in a foreign country—I showed them I still had a conscience. However, I inflicted a highly uncomfortable consequence, proving once and for all that I would no longer be walked over.
