My Cousin Borrowed a Lawsuit

"Vivian!" Aunt Melissa grabbed her arm.

"Mom, stay out of it!" She yanked free and pointed at me. "Lindsay, I finally see who you really are. It's just a stupid laptop and four grand, and you're willing to destroy our relationship over it? Is money seriously all you care about?"

I looked at her twisted expression and suddenly felt like I didn't know her at all.

"This isn't about money," I said. "It's about responsibility. You borrowed my laptop. It came back damaged. You pay for it. That's how this works."

"What damage? The laptop still turns on, doesn't it? It still works!"

"Works?" I opened the laptop, pulled up Photoshop, and imported an image. "Watch."

The loading bar crawled across the screen. The fan screamed loud enough for people at the next table to glance over.

"A ten-minute render used to take ten minutes. Now it takes two hours. Programs that used to open instantly freeze for three minutes. You call that working?"

Vivian's face went red, then pale. "Th-That still wasn't me! It was the repair shop!"

"You picked the repair shop."

"I didn't know they'd swap the parts!"

"Then why didn't you tell me you got it repaired? Why can't you tell me the shop's name? And why did you tell me it was 'totally fine' three different times when I asked?"

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

Aunt Melissa jumped in fast. "Lindsay, maybe Vivian just didn't want you worrying—"

"Didn't want me to worry?" I let out a laugh. "Or didn't want me finding out and asking her to pay for it?"

My mom looked uncomfortable. "Lindsay, watch your tone..."

"Mom, I'm telling the truth."

"You—"

"Enough." Vivian cut her off, pulled out her phone, and shoved it toward me. "Look. Three hundred dollars. That's what I paid for the reinstall. If I swapped the parts, why would it only cost three hundred?"

I glanced at the transfer record. "A reinstall with data backup usually costs around ninety to a hundred fifty. You paid three hundred. That doesn't prove nothing happened. It proves they charged you for more than just a reinstall."

She froze.

"Lindsay!" Aunt Melissa snapped. "How can you say something like that? Vivian's your cousin! Are you trying to push her over the edge?"

"Who's pushing who here?" I looked straight at her. "Forty-six hundred dollars of hardware got turned into six-hundred-dollar junk. That's a four-thousand-dollar loss. Why shouldn't it be paid back?"

"You can't talk like this! We're family. Can't we handle this calmly?"

"I have been calm." I looked at Vivian. "Three months ago, I calmly lent her my laptop. A month later, I calmly asked when she was giving it back.

"Two months later, I calmly asked if something was wrong with it.

"Yesterday, I calmly told her the inspection results.

"So tell me—when was she actually honest with me?"

Aunt Melissa went quiet.

Vivian grabbed her bag. "Mom, let's go. There's no point talking to someone like her."

She spun around and stormed out.

Aunt Melissa shot me one last look before following her out.

My mom stayed across from me, frowning. "Lindsay, you were too harsh."

"What exactly did I say wrong?"

"If you talk to Vivian like that, how do you expect her to admit anything?"

"So she screws up, and I'm supposed to beg her to own it?"

"That's not what I mean—"

"Then what do you mean?" I looked at her. "Ever since we were kids, every time Vivian broke my stuff or borrowed money and never paid it back, you told me to let it go. She says, 'I didn't mean to,' and suddenly everything's fine.

"This time it's forty-six hundred dollars in hardware. What about next time? If she hits someone with her car, does 'I didn't mean to' magically fix that too?"

My mom frowned harder. "How can you compare those things?"

"It's the same principle." I stood. "If you do something wrong, you take responsibility. She's gone over twenty years without learning that. So now I'm teaching her."

I grabbed the inspection report and my laptop, then walked out of the coffee shop.