My sister stole my new car without asking, wrecked it, and ended up behind bars, but somehow I was still the villain the moment I asked her to pay for what she had destroyed. My father slapped me across the face and said I was selfish, while my parents threatened to throw me out unless I covered her tuition like my life existed only to clean up her disasters. I stood there in silence, letting them believe they had broken me one more time, even as I decided they would all be taught a lesson they would never forget. Then the very next day, everything changed, because the legal papers I filed hit them harder than any argument ever could.
For years, they had mistaken my consistency for weakness and my support for something ambient, like heat or running water. It had never occurred to them that I might one day leave them alone with the consequences they kept generating.
Mason got home by four.
He was twenty, serious in the way younger brothers become when they continue reading …
