I have a flight from LAX to NRT on Wednesday. It will be the return portion of a R/T. I don't want to be charged anymore money, but I will not be using the flight.

Should I call American Airlines before my departure? Or will I incur a fine that way? Someone please help me from getting penalized. I am unemployed and cannot afford to pay an insanely high cancellation fee.

*The other threads on this issue are very old and I couldn't get a direct answer after reading for 45 minutes. I'll delete this once I have an answer since I imagine somewhere in the forum it is redundant.