Chapter 5

Over the next six months, Brenda cycled through burner numbers, bombarding me with messages every few days.

Sometimes she cursed me, calling me an ungrateful monster who betrayed her own blood.

Sometimes she played the victim, whining that Luna had suffered a mental breakdown and spent her days destroying furniture.

Other times she issued orders, demanding I wire money home to cover Luna's therapy bills.

I ignored every single attempt.

Until one afternoon, Claire called me, sounding frantic.

"Stella, your mother did something catastrophic."

"What happened?"

"She took out an equity loan against their condo—mortgaged the entire place for over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars—trying to bail out that scammer fiancé. But the guy skipped bail and vanished into thin air! The money is gone. The bank is foreclosing on their home, your father collapsed from a stroke, and your mother has been kneeling on the pavement in front of their building, wailing all morning."

I held the phone in silence.

"Stella," Claire sighed deeply. "I know how horribly they treated you. But they are literally about to be homeless. Your mother came crying to me, begging me to ask... if you would let them move into your place."

"Claire."

"Yes?"

"When she sold my bed to a scrap dealer and told me to get lost with a box of old books, did she ever worry that I would be homeless?"

Claire fell silent.

"I won't help," I said evenly.

After hanging up, I sat on my sofa for a long time.

Then I stood up, walked to the bottom of my hallway closet, and pulled out an old storage container.

Inside were a few worn textbooks, the charred remains of my original college acceptance letter, and a single photograph from my eighteenth birthday. Luna stood dead center in her pink couture dress, radiant and smiling. I stood on the far edge in a faded school hoodie, half-cut out of the frame.

On the back of the photo, written in pencil, was: *Stella: D-Tier. Minimum survival support.*

I stared at those words for a long time.

Then I unlocked my phone and sent a text to Brenda’s latest number—the very night the bank seized their home and she was weeping on the sidewalk.

"Mom, is that *Family Resource ROI Evaluation Matrix* still framed on your wall?"

Ten minutes later, she replied with a raspy voice note.

Her voice was raw and broken: "Stella, what are you trying to say? Are you mocking me? I raised you for eighteen years! Is this how you pay me back?"

I typed: "The sheet said: Luna, S-Tier, full family backing. Stella, D-Tier, minimum survival support, prepare for immediate repayment."

"Yes! Rational parenting! So what? Are you denying your obligations now?"

"If Luna is S-Tier, shouldn't you be asking her for help?"

The voice note paused for two seconds, followed by Brenda’s hysterical, guttural wailing.

"She ran away! She took every last penny we had left in the safe and vanished! She doesn't care whether we live or die! Stella, you're the older sister! You can't just leave us to die on the street!"

I stared at the screen and slowly typed out my response:

"I’m D-Tier, remember? A D-Tier daughter only provides minimum survival support."

"Are you asking me to repay the family now?"

Brenda never texted back.

A few days later, Claire told me that Richard had been discharged from the hospital, though his mobility was severely compromised. Brenda had rented a windowless, damp basement room on the industrial outskirts of town for forty dollars a week.

Nobody knew where Luna had gone. Some heard she ran off with a new boyfriend; others claimed she had moved south to do low-tier promotional livestreams.

I continued working.

I was officially promoted to Senior Content Director, and my annual compensation jumped significantly.

I purchased a cozy two-bedroom condo. It wasn't enormous, but the deed was entirely in my name.

One afternoon, while unpacking boxes in my new home, I found the photocopy of the *Family Resource ROI Evaluation Matrix*—the one I had secretly peeled off the living room wall years ago.

I looked at the wrinkled paper, covered in meticulous notes in red and blue ink:

*Luna: Piano lessons. Plus points. Stella: Exam prep books. Minus points.*

*Luna: Summer camp abroad. Plus points. Stella: Prescription glasses. Minus points.*

Dozens of lines, weighing our worth down to the penny.

Looking at it now, it seemed utterly ridiculous.

I flipped the sheet over. On the back were the words I had scrawled in pen that cold night at the bus station:

*Stella: Survive.*