Julien Gregg's Rustin

 

Copyright © 2026 by Julien Gregg 
All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permission requests, contact the author by email.

The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.

My name is Rustin Banks. I'm thirty years old, and I run a very successful tech company that specializes in cyber security. I built the company from nothing with no help from anyone. I paid my way through college, eating instant noodles, and drinking energy drinks. I worked three jobs, a shift at the campus book store right after classes, a shift at the local pizza place after that, and a shift at in the cafeteria, bussing tables in the morning before classes. I had graduated with honors and no debt. My family didn't come to the graduation ceremony. They had to attend my brother's high school graduation which they said was the same day as my college graduation, but I knew that college let out before the high schools and his graduation was two weeks away.

My brother, Randal, was the golden child of the family. He could do no wrong in the eyes of my parents. I was the older brother who was expected to bend over backward to make sure that Randal's life was easy. While working to pay my tuition, I was expected to send one thousand, two hundred dollars home every month for Randal's school fees. He went to a private school while I had been forced to go to public school. I wasn't resentful. Not yet. That came later.

When I started my company, my father, Marcus Banks told me that I would never make it in the tech world. He dismissed my accomplishments all together. My mother would simply say, "That's nice, Dear." Then she would pivot the conversation to Randal's newest accomplishment. His accomplishments were mundane compared to mine. He maintained a "C" average, while I had held a 4.0 grade point average all through high school and college. When I came home from college that final time, it was the Randal show. I walked into a party being thrown for his graduation, which still hadn't taken place yet. When I pointed out the lie my family told me, they told me to suck it up and be the bigger person.

It was always the same thing. "Be the bigger person," was what they said any time I pointed anything out that was unfair. I stopped pointing it out and just accepted that this was the way things were. When my company made its first million in revenue, my mother told me that they were stretched thin on the mortgage. I paid it without another word. It was supposed to be temporary. My uncle David Banks had shown me a dilapidated modular class room at the elementary school. He'd said that was temporary. It had been installed long before I'd gone there. But he said that it was supposed to be temporary and had been there since nineteen eighty-five. He warned me to look at that building whenever anyone used the word temporary. I didn't know how prophetic his words were until it was too late.

I moved into a loft apartment with floor to ceiling windows, exposed brick walls, and hardwood floors. It was a one-bedroom apartment that I paid for in cash. It was mine. My mother told me that it was basic. That was the word she'd used when I'd invited my parents to see my new apartment. Basic. I never invited them over again. She didn't hesitate to tell me that they were having trouble playing the utilities. I stepped up like a good son does. "It's temporary," she said. There was that word again.

Eight years later, I was paying two thousand, five hundred dollars a month for the mortgage. That had been temporary. I was sending them four hundred dollars a month for utilities. That had been temporary. Then they bought Randal a car. It wasn't a flashy sports car or anything. It was just that I'd ridden the bus all over town before I'd made enough money for a rusted out two-door sedan with over a hundred, fifty thousand miles on the engine. His car was brand new. The resentment started there. I didn't say anything.

Then came the engagement party for Randal and his soon to be wife, Narise. They paid a fortune to rent the Beaumont Center, the most expensive venue in town. They hired a chef, wait staff, a string quartette, and spared no expense. I was invited, of course, but I was seated at the back table with relatives I didn't remember. Then my brother stood to make his toast. He thanked our parents for the party, he thanked his future in-laws for their presence. Then he locked eyes with me. "Then there's my older brother, Rustin," he said. "He's the disappointment of the family. He's always trying to buy love."

I got up, pushed my chair back under the table and left the venue. I drove home to my loft apartment and sighed. I was the disappointment. Well, I'd show them what kind of disappointment I could be. I logged onto my banking portal and canceled the mortgage payments, the utility payments, and the automatic payment to them for groceries and Randal's insurance. I felt so incredibly lighter after I saw that money tie broken. Temporary had been eight years. I turned off the laptop and got myself a glass of scotch. I sat on my balcony and watched the city traffic. My phone began to buzz.

Mom: Where are you? Mom: Where did you go? Dad: Don't be so childish. It was just a joke.

I deleted the messages and blocked their numbers. I blocked Randal's number, and after a thought I blocked Narise's number. I blocked the flying monkeys as well. These were aunts and uncles that Mom and Dad would deploy to tell me how horrible it was that I had cut them off. I instigated two-factor identification on my bank accounts, changed the security questions, and locked down my credit. Then I posted that I had paid the mortgage at two thousand, five hundred dollars a month for twelve months a year. This had gone on for eight years, totaling two hundred, forty thousand dollars. I'd paid four hundred dollars a month on the utilities for twelve months a year. This had also gone on for eight years, totaling thirty-eight thousand, four hundred dollars. I paid nine hundred a month for twelve months a year. This like the others had gone on for eight years, totaling eighty-six thousand four hundred dollars. The grand total was a staggering three hundred, sixty-four thousand, eight hundred dollars after eight years. All of this was paid to my family to keep them afloat. I wrote that it stopped now. The financial abuse, the backhanded compliments, the mantra of "Be the bigger person" and "Family helps family", and the toxic golden child persona for Randal while I became the background ATM. I was no longer family. I had chosen to divorce myself from the family and never look back. I wrote that calling me, sending me email, letters, or showing up at my place of residence or my company would result in trespassing charges as they were now strangers to me. I posted it.

I called David, my best friend and partner in the firm. I laid it all out for him and told him to check my social media for the post. He whistled through his teeth. He said, "I knew it was a lot of money that you could have been using for other things, but that much? That's financial abuse. You could sue them for reimbursement."

"I'm not interested in that," I said. "I gave the money willingly like a blind idiot. Tonight, he introduced me as the disappointment of the family who paid for love. That was the final straw. I'm done with them. All of them."

"What are you going to do?" he asked.

"I'm going to sell the loft," I said.

"You love that loft," he said.

"They know where it is," I replied. "I'm going to buy a house just outside of town. I've been looking at one and wishing I had the money to buy it."

"The old Marsden House?" he asked.

"That's the one," I said. "It's five bedrooms, with three full bathrooms, a living room, den, dining room, and kitchen on the ground floor. It has everything. There's a three-car garage, and a pool behind the house."

"Righteous," he said. "I can't wait to see what you do with it."

"I'm deactivating my social media and getting a new phone," I said.

"Right on," he said. "Just let me know, Dude."

"Talk to you soon," I said.

The next day, they were panicking. I was leaving to get a new phone and talk to the realtor when they arrived at my door. I smirked at them and called the police. They seemed shocked. Hadn't I warned them? I told the police that I had trespassers in front of the building where I currently owned an apartment, and I wanted them gone. He asked if I would be pressing charges. I said I would. He said there was an officer in the area.

"Rustin, you can't do that," my mother said. "You can't have your own family arrested."

As she said this the squad car pulled up to the curb. Two uniformed policemen got out and told my family that they were under arrest for trespassing. They took their names and told them that I was pressing charges, so they'd hear from the District Attorney. My mother was crying. My father looked at me like he'd never seen me before. I just went to the underground garage and got in my car. I drove to the police station and pressed charges just like I said I'd do. Then I went and got a new phone. I got a new number. I went to the realtor and told her to list the loft. I wanted it sold soon. She said she'd have no trouble.

Two days later she had a buyer. I accepted his offer. Then I told her that I wanted the Marsden House. She told me how much they were asking, and I said to offer the asking price. She called me back later that night to tell me that they had accepted. A month later, David was helping me move into the house. He whistled through his teeth as he walked through the house. He liked the marble walls and flooring in the entry way. He liked the horizontal wood panels in the den. He loved the hardwood and the molding. He went out the back door and looked at the pool. There was a deck all the way around it with a cabana behind the pool.

"This is sweet," he said. "A lot of house for one person."

"I'll manage," I said with a smile.

My company reached the fifty million dollar revenue mark later that week. Meanwhile, my parents were served the first late notice for the mortgage. I heard this from my cousin, Sarah. She was the only one in the family to get my new number. She was a black sheep and had been shunned by the family for years. She told me that they were telling anyone who would listen that I had done this to them out of spite. She said she'd saved my social media post and re posted it in my name on her page. Others had shared it. The family that they would have sent after me was now silent. They watched as the painful truth of what I'd been paying for was revealed in what they lost.

"Your brother's car was repossessed," she said. "They were using the money you sent for utilities to pay the payments. That's gone, and the bank smelled blood in the water. Like a shark, they struck."

In the end, my parents were forced to move into a rental apartment on the bad side of the city. Randal didn't get married. Narise called the wedding off when she found out that I had been paying for his car and everything he had was being taken way, because my money had stopped. I thought that was fitting. He'd called me the family disappointment, and now he was the laughing stock of the family. I met Eric at the coffee shop on the ground floor of my office building. He was a corporate lawyer who worked for the firm one floor below me. We had both come to the coffee shop to get chocolate, cherry empanadas. I loved those things. Apparently, Eric did, too. He got a coffee, and though I had never developed a taste for that particular liquid, I got a hot tea. We sat down and talked.

He had come from a toxic family, too. We compared our families and laughed together. That turned into a daily thing. Then we met for drinks after work. Then it was dinner. Then he spent the night in my house. Six months later, he moved in with me. We were quiet about our relationship, just letting people think what they thought. We didn't need any outside influence to validate our relationship. We were sitting on the deck enjoying glasses of scotch when my motion camera alerted me to someone at the gate to my property. I picked up my phone and saw that it was my father. I told Eric I'd be back and walked through the house and down the walk. I stood in front of the gate.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"Rustin," he said. "I've divorced your mother. I've washed my hands of her and Randal. Randal refused to get a job, because he said they were beneath his skill set. That's code for he's lazy. Your mother enables him. She talks about you like you destroyed the family. I told her I'd had enough a month ago. The divorce was final today."

"It took you thirty years to have enough?" I asked.

"Son, don't be like that," he said. "I'm alone now. I have nowhere to go. I'm staying at a motel, but even that won't last long because I had to pay my lawyer a lot of money. You can help me."

"Why would I?" I asked. "I helped you for eight years, and you let Randal introduce me as the family disappointment."

"Son, that wasn't me," he said. "I didn't know he was going to do that."

"But you stayed silent after he did it," I said. "You could have stood up and told him to stop that and to apologize, but you didn't."

"Rustin, please," he said.

"Go away," I said. I turned and walked back into the house.

That was the last time I spoke to a member of the so-called family. They weren't family. They were just people who shared my DNA. Eric and I got married in a small ceremony with just friends and Sarah. We had a grand reception at the Beaumont Center. Sarah posted all of the pictures to her social media accounts, so I knew my family had seen them. Let them. Let them see me celebrate without them.