Chapter 4

"Piper, Chloe is pregnant with baby number two."

My mom called me on a Friday night in December. I was squatting in my kitchen, boiling cheap store-brand pasta in a small pot with a pinch of salt.

The water bubbled. I held my fork, silent.

"Your brother is feeling really stressed. He was hoping you, as his older sister, could help out a bit."

"Help out with what?"

"Well, Chloe can't work during her first trimester, so they're down to one income. Leo is carrying the car payment and rent all on his own..."

I turned off the stove. The pasta was overcooked and mushy.

"Mom, how much money are you asking me for?"

She paused, caught off guard by my bluntness.

"It's not about a specific amount... just, you know, whatever you can spare. Your brother is too proud to ask himself."

*Whatever I can spare.*

The last time, twelve thousand dollars was just "on your card first."

"I still have two thousand dollars of credit card debt to pay off."

"You've been paying that off for months! How is it not paid yet?" Her voice grew shrill. "How much do you even make?"

"Thirty-five hundred a month."

"And you can't pay off four thousand dollars with that? Are you wasting your money on stupid things?"

The overcooked pasta sat in the pot, a congealed mess. It looked exactly like my life. Sticky, heavy, impossible to separate.

"Mom, after rent, credit cards, utilities, and food, I have less than fifty dollars left a week."

"Then you need to budget better—"

"I eat plain pasta for dinner, Mom. It costs me fifty cents."

She went quiet.

But this wasn't the thoughtful ten-second silence from before. It was something else.

Three seconds later, she said, "Then move back home. Save on rent."

*Move back home.*

So the money I saved on rent could go directly into Leo's pocket.

Every word out of her mouth was a calculated gear. It looked like she was trying to solve my problems, but every turn of the wheel was just designed to keep Leo's life running smoothly.

"Mom, I'm not moving back."

"Piper, don't be like this—"

"I'm not moving back to pay my brother's bills. I paid the twelve thousand dollars alone. The credit card interest rate is 14.6%. I've paid hundreds in interest over the last ten months. Did you know that?"

"What interest? Did you take out a payday loan?"

Her tone wasn't concern. It was embarrassment.

"A credit card, Mom. The one you told me to 'just use first'."

"I thought you had the cash... why didn't you say something?"

I laughed silently.

Would saying something have changed anything? Would you have made Leo pay? No. You would have just said, "Your brother just bought a car, he's tight."

I didn't say it out loud. I was too tired. Not sleepy-tired, but the kind of exhaustion that seeps into your bones when you realize explaining is pointless.

"Mom, I'll keep paying for Dad's medicine. But anything else? I don't have it."

"So you're just going to turn your back on your brother's pregnant wife?"

"She's having *his* baby. Not mine."

"Piper Vance! Since when did you become so heartless?"

My full name.

In our family, when they used your full name, it meant you had crossed a line. You were a disappointment.

"When your dad was sick, we relied on you for everything. Now that you've got your own life, you don't care about family at all—"

"You relied on me," I repeated. "Yeah. You did. You relied on me for twelve thousand dollars. You relied on me to sit in the hospital for a week. And when you all drove off in a warm car, you relied on me to find my own way home."

"Are you seriously still holding a grudge over that? There just wasn't enough room—"

"Mom, I paid twelve thousand dollars, and you wouldn't even let me have a ten-dollar Uber ride with you."

She fell silent.

A long, heavy silence. I could hear the TV playing in her living room, some reality show with people laughing.

Then, she said something that cut deeper than being called selfish.

"You're thirty years old, single, living in a shoebox. Maybe if you weren't so stubborn and difficult, you'd have a husband by now. Look at Chloe. She knows how to make people happy. You? You're going to end up alone."

I set the phone on the table.

I didn't hang up. I just let her talk to the empty air.

"...if you just found someone to share the bills with... but you insist on doing everything the hard way..."

Her voice buzzed from the speaker like a distant radio station.

I sat on the floor of my cramped apartment, staring at a pot of ruined pasta, listening to my mother tell me I was unlovable, under a flickering, dying light.

The light flickered twice and went out.

In the dark, I reached for my phone and hit end call.

I opened my bank app.

Credit card payment plan. Minimum payment: $40. Full payment: $2,127.

I changed the setting from "minimum" to "pay in full."

It meant for the next few months, I would have almost nothing.

But I wanted to be done. I wanted to pay off every single cent and become a different person.

At least, I would never be that girl standing on the curb watching her family drive away.

I changed my payment date to the 11th—my birthday.

Every time the bank reminded me to pay, it would remind me of how many years I had wasted.

It was time to live for myself.