Three days after I lost my job, Mom texted, “Your brother needs the apartment more than you do.” When I got home, his boxes were already in my bedroom, and Dad calmly said, “You’re unemployed. You can stay with a friend.”

the fourth-floor corridor.

And beside my bed sat several boxes filled with my clothes, framed photos, and work folders.

Someone hadn’t merely started moving Tyler in.

They had started moving me out.

“Mom said you knew,” he finally said.

“Knew what?”

Before he could answer, my mother stepped out of my kitchen holding the spare key I had given her two years earlier.

For emergencies.

“Jesse, don’t start.”

I stared at the key.

“What exactly am I not supposed to start?”

Mom sighed.

It was the same sigh she used