My brother sabotaged my interview and acted like it was a joke. By Friday, his paycheck was rerouted, and I finally let him face the consequences.

My name is Ethan. I’m 34 years old, and for the majority of my adult life, I have been the person my family calls when things go wrong. Not because I’m brilliant or unique. Not because I am wealthy or connected. I am dependable.

That’s what they say. Ethan is reliable—the person who turns up when rent is short, when the automobile breaks down, or when someone has to sign a loan they are unable to qualify for.

I reside in a little apartment around twenty-two minutes from where I grew up. The walls are thin, the kitchen is antiquated, and the heater makes odd noises in the cold. But it’s mine. I pay for it myself. I always have.

My job is solid yet hard. It’s assistance for a modest logistics firm. The hours are long, the task is technical, and the compensation is decent—good enough to pay my own expenses and yet send money when my phone rings with another request.

Dylan, my brother, is 30. He’s four years younger than me, yet he’s always been handled as if he were made of something delicate and valuable.

When we were kids, I obtained secondhand school books. Dylan received new ones, a laptop, and money for excursions I was never invited to. When I reached sixteen, I was given the keys to a rusting automobile with a damaged windshield and instructed to be thankful.

When Dylan reached sixteen, my parents co-signed a lease on a silver Charger. They believed he deserved something nice—something that matched his potential.

Potential. Dylan could not get away from that term. He had talent in high school despite the fact that he had recently finished. He had talent in community college, but he quit after one semester.

He had promise when he jumped between sales positions, leasing agreements, and half-baked company plans that cost our parents thousands of dollars and yielded nothing but excuses.

The phone rang whenever Dylan slipped—when a landlord phoned or when a creditor delivered a letter. My phone, because I was dependable.

Sarah never asked if I minded. She simply assumed that is what the family does. She would say that family helps.

My family did not keep score, but I did. Not out of resentment, but because of need. I had a folder on my computer—a simple spreadsheet with dates, numbers, and reasons.

Dylan: $2,500 for his security deposit when he was evicted. $1,000 for Sarah’s automobile repair after she gave Dylan her vehicle and he returned it with a blown gearbox. $1,800 after insurance failed to cover Jon’s medical expenditures.

I never mentioned the folder. I never asked for reimbursement. I kept adding rows.

Dylan required a vehicle loan two years ago. His credit was ruined—missed payments, collections, and charge-offs. No bank would grant him a loan.

He approached me with a grin and a promise. “Simply cosign,” he said. “I will make all payments. You’ll never have to worry.”

I paused. I knew better. But Sarah called the same night. She stated that Dylan was making an extra effort this time. She said that he had a fantastic job lined up—something steady. She stated it would mean everything to her if I helped.

So, I signed.

The first payment arrived late. The second one bounced. By the third month, I was paying half the monthly payment only to avoid the loan from failing and damaging both of our credit ratings.

Dylan never addressed it. He just kept driving, uploading images from weekend vacations, and living as if someone else was holding the net underneath him.

Someone was me.

I assumed that was what families did.

Dylan arrived at my flat on a Sunday afternoon without contacting first. He had a habit of regarding my space as an extension of his own, stepping in confidently and with a request already on his lips.

I was at my workstation reading notes for an interview set for Monday morning—a huge interview for a six-figure senior network architect role with a corporation three times the size of my present employment. I’d been prepping for two weeks.

Dylan landed on my couch and tossed his phone on the coffee table. He was beaming like he often did when he desired something. He started discussing an investment potential.

Dylan was interested in joining a friend’s house-flipping business. He needed $25,000. He stated it casually as if he were asking to borrow a sweater.

I stopped typing. I turned in my chair and glanced at him. I inquired whether he was serious.

He chuckled and said, “Of course I’m serious. This is going to change everything.” He would quadruple his money in eight months, if not triple it. All he needed was a co-signer to acquire a personal loan.

The bank would not give him a loan. He needed someone with strong credit—someone responsible.

I reminded him about the car loan and asked if he remembered that I had been covering half of his payments for nearly two years.

He waved his hand and said that was different, that he was getting back on track, and that this new opportunity would allow him to repay me for everything.

Dylan sat up straighter, his expression hardening as he asked why I couldn’t take on another loan with him. My credit was already stretched from covering his missed payments, so I couldn’t risk it.

He only needed one thing—one signature.

Not for a house flip. Not for anything.

He stared at me for a long time, then laughed. It was not a friendly sound. He said I was being selfish. He said I had always been the boring one—the one who was too afraid to take a risk.

He said he was going to be successful with or without me, and he would remember this conversation when he was successful.

He rose up, grabbed his phone, and moved toward the door. Before he left, he looked back and said something I’ll never forget.

The door slammed, and I sat there gazing at the screen in front of me, my hands trembling from something more than fury.

I returned to my notes. I had an interview in less than twenty-four hours. I needed to focus. I needed this job. It was my way out, my way forward—away from always being the fallback, the safety net, the one holding everything together while everyone else moved on.

I considered calling Sarah to explain or texting Dylan to apologize, even though I had nothing to apologize for. But I didn’t do either. I just closed the folder on my screen and went back to preparing, telling myself it would pass.

Dylan always moved on to the next thing, and he always forgot.

I was mistaken.

The interview was scheduled for 9:00 a.m. I awoke at 6:30 a.m., showered, dressed in a button-down even though only my upper half would be on camera, and tested my internet connection eight times.

Everything was stable. My desk was clear, my notes were organized, and my résumé was polished. I made coffee, sat down, and opened the video conferencing link ten minutes early.

At 8:50, I heard a car pull into the driveway next door. My parents live two houses down from my apartment complex, and Dylan still lives with them.

I didn’t think much of it, assuming he was leaving for work. Then I heard heavy, quick footsteps on the stairs outside my unit—the kind of footsteps that don’t belong to someone paying a casual visit.

The breaker box door in the hallway outside my apartment is old and loud. I heard it creak open and stood up from my desk, perplexed.

Then everything went dark. My monitor blinked off. The refrigerator stopped humming. The router lights went out, and the entire apartment lost power.

I dashed to the door and yanked it open. Dylan was standing in the hallway with his hand still on the breaker panel, smiling—not grinning—as if he had just pulled off the funniest prank in the world.

I stared at him, my mind racing to catch up with what was going on.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Just messing around.”

I looked at my watch. 8:53. My interview began in seven minutes, and I begged him to turn it back on now.

He inclined his head as if thinking about it, then shook his head, saying he did not believe he would.

He replied, “Maybe you need to learn what it feels like when someone doesn’t help you when you need it.”

I took a step toward him, my voice louder than I intended. I told him I had an interview, a job interview, right now, and I needed the power turned back on immediately.

He laughed. He actually laughed.

He said he knew. He said he saw my calendar on the kitchen counter yesterday when he stopped by and thought it was funny. “Guess we’ll see who the real success is.”

At 8:59 a.m., the hiring manager was already in the waiting room.

I flipped the breakers back, my hands trembling so much that I could barely grip the switches. The lights came on, the router blinked back to life, and I dashed to my desk to join the meeting.

The interview was a disaster. My heart was pounding, my shirt damp with sweat. My internet kept dropping because the router hadn’t been fully reset, and I stammered through answers I’d practiced a hundred times.

I apologized twice for technical difficulties, and the hiring manager was polite but distant. I could tell by his eyes—he had already moved on.

By the time the call ended twenty minutes later, I knew I’d lost my chance.

I sat at my desk in silence. The apartment felt too small, the walls felt too close, and I stared at the black screen of my monitor, trying to process what had just happened.

Dylan had sabotaged me on purpose, stealing something I’d worked for months—something that could have changed my life—and he had done it because I said no to him.

I didn’t cry or yell. I just sat there, my mind going blank and then filling with something cold and clear.

I didn’t go to my parents’ house right away. Instead, I sat in my apartment for hours staring at nothing, replaying the moment Dylan flipped those breakers.

I kept thinking about his face — the smile, the casual cruelty, the way he said he knew about my interview. He had planned it. This was not a joke. This was punishment.

By evening, my phone began to ring. Sarah texted first asking if I was okay, then called. I let it ring, and she called again.

When I walked in, the house smelled like pot roast, and John was watching television in the living room. She asked if I could come over for dinner, saying Dylan had mentioned there had been some tension and she wanted to talk.

I told her I’d be there in twenty minutes.

Dylan was scrolling on his phone at the kitchen table when I walked in. Sarah pulled a chair out for me and set a plate down. She smiled, but it was tight and nervous.

She asked how my day went.

I told her I lost the job. My interview was ruined because someone turned off the power to my apartment right before it started.

Sarah looked at Dylan. He shrugged.

He said it was just a joke. He said I was overreacting. He said everyone has bad interviews sometimes. It wasn’t his fault I choked.

I looked at Sarah. I waited for her to say something.

She set her fork down and sighed. She said Dylan didn’t mean it. She said he was just frustrated with the loan situation, and sometimes people do stupid things when they are upset.

She said brothers fight and that is normal. She said I shouldn’t hold a grudge.

I sat there chewing food I couldn’t taste, listening to her make excuses.

John didn’t say anything, just kept eating, eyes on his plate. Dylan smirked at his phone and Sarah kept talking, filling the silence with reasons why I should let it go.

I finished my meal in silence, thanked her for dinner, stood up, and walked out.

No one followed me or called after me.

I drove back to my apartment, parked, and sat in my car in the dark for a long time, thinking about all the times I had helped, all the money I had sent, and all the hours I had spent fixing problems that were not mine to fix.

I considered Dylan’s car — the silver Charger he had been driving for two years, the one I had co-signed for, the one I had been paying for — and the spreadsheet on my computer, the one I had never shown anyone, the one that documented years of being the backup plan, the emergency fund, the dependable one who never received a thank you or an apology.

And I realized something that made my chest tighten.

I wasn’t just a name on a loan. I was the primary contact, and I had access to everything.

I went inside and opened my laptop, and I stayed up until 3:00 a.m. navigating through account portals, loan agreements, and digital records that I hadn’t looked at in months.

The car loan was in both of our names, but I was listed as the primary contact. So, all communications from the lender came to my email address — including payment reminders, statements, and default warnings — which Dylan had never seen.

He had no clue how close the account had been to repossession numerous times since I had been secretly bridging the gap, moving money from my savings to avoid his credit from crumbling and taking mine down with it.

I looked up the payment history, which was twenty-five months.

I opened a new tab and logged into Dylan’s bank account, which I had helped him set up three years ago.

Dylan had made five payments on time, and I had spent more than $12,500 to keep his car on the road while he posted photos of his road trips and weekend getaways.

He needed a checking account to receive direct deposits from his job, and his previous bank had closed his account due to overdrafts.

I accompanied him to open a new one, sat beside him while he filled out the paperwork, and assisted him in linking his employer information.

He never changed the recovery email. It was still mine.

I stared at the screen. His account balance was low, but his paycheck was scheduled to deposit on Friday. It was $1,500 — which was not much, but consistent.

I went to the direct deposit settings, saved the employer routing information, and the account number was visible.

I took a screenshot and saved it in a folder I named Records.

Then I took a look at the car loan agreement, which contained a clause that I had overlooked when I first signed: a thirty-day grace period for missed payments, followed by an automatic default trigger if the account went sixty days delinquent, after which the lender could repossess the vehicle without further notice.

I also checked the payment schedule. The last payment I made was three weeks ago. If I stopped now, the account would be thirty days past due in one week, sixty days in five weeks, and it would be repossessed within days.

I opened my banking app and went to scheduled transfers. There was a $500 recurring payment set to go out on the twentieth of each month, which was half of Dylan’s car payment.

I canceled it.

The confirmation screen asked if I was sure. I clicked yes.

I went back to the direct deposit settings. I could reroute his paycheck. Technically, the account was still under my recovery email.

I could update the routing information, send his Friday deposit to a different account, and Dylan would have no idea until he checked his balance.

By then, it would be too late to fix before the weekend.

And without that paycheck, he wouldn’t have enough money for gas, food, or anything else until he sorted it out with his employer, which could take days.

I closed the laptop and sat in the dark, my hands steady, my mind clear, and I knew what I was doing.

On Thursday night, I logged into the direct deposit portal with the recovery email I still had access to and updated the routing information.

I knew it was going to hurt him and cause chaos, but I didn’t feel any guilt or hesitation.

Dylan’s paycheck would no longer go to his checking account. Instead, it would be routed to a secondary account I opened earlier that week — a simple savings account under my name, legal, temporary, and reversible if I wanted it to be.

But I had no intention of reversing anything.

The second step was straightforward.

I called the auto lender and informed them that I would no longer be making loan payments. I explained that I was a co-signer, not the primary driver, and that the borrower had been delinquent for months.

I inquired about the repossession timeline, and the representative was polite and efficient. She confirmed that the loan was already twenty-four days past due and that if no payment was received within six days, the account would go into default.

She thanked me for the call and placed my statement in the file.

I hung up and gazed at the ceiling. It was done. The pieces were in motion.

Dylan would wake up Friday morning anticipating his money, but when he checked his account, nothing would be there.

He would panic, call his employer, and spend hours trying to untangle the mess.

By the time he figured it out, the weekend would have begun. Direct deposit corrections take days to process.

And while he scrambled, the car loan would tick past thirty days overdue. By the following Tuesday, it would reach the sixty-day threshold, and repossession would occur within seventy-two hours.

I wrote a note. I kept it short, printed it on plain paper. No drama, just facts. Folded it carefully and placed it in an envelope on my desk, promising to deliver it when the time was right.

When Friday morning arrived, I awoke early, made coffee, and checked the deposit confirmation. Dylan’s paycheck had been successfully rerouted.

I waited.

My phone remained silent until 9:30 when it buzzed — a text from Dylan. Three question marks. Nothing else.

I did not respond.

By noon, Sarah called and asked if I had heard from Dylan. She said he was having some kind of issue with his bank and wondered if I knew anything about it.

I told her I didn’t.

Dylan phoned me at 2 p.m., left a voicemail, and then called again at 4:00 and 6:00 p.m.

Later, I listened to the voicemails.

The first was confused, asking if I knew what was going on with his paycheck. The second was angry, accusing me of tampering with his accounts, and the third was desperate, asking if I could wire him money to get him through the weekend.

I deleted the messages, and Saturday went by quietly.