Chapter 2

Dad slammed the door and stormed out.

Connor smirked and disappeared into his room.

Mom held out her hand to me.

"Five dollars. Tonight's rent."

I looked down.

"I gave all my money to Connor."

"That's your problem."

She stood and slid open the balcony door.

"No money, no room. Go on your own. Don't make me tell you twice."

I said nothing.

I went to my bedroom and picked up the small backpack I kept packed with toiletries and one clean set of clothes.

It had happened so many times that I was used to it.

When I opened my bedroom door, Connor walked in carrying an armful of sneakers and dumped them across my bed.

"Since you didn't get into college, maybe you should finally get a job and move out."

He rubbed his shoulder dramatically.

"Then I can turn this room into the walk-in closet I was supposed to have."

I looked around the room, already crammed with his clothes and sneakers, and said nothing.

I picked up my bag and tried to leave.

Connor grabbed it.

"If you're hiding money now, who knows what else you're hiding?"

He tossed my things onto the floor one by one.

Then he turned the bag upside down and shook it out.

Only then did he nod.

"Good. At least you haven't started stealing."

I crouched and gathered everything again.

Mom was waiting at the balcony.

"Hurry up. It's hot outside. If too much warm air gets in, Peanut could overheat. Connor would worry."

Peanut had sweaters, treats, toys, and his own padded bed.

I wasn't even allowed to sleep on the living-room sofa.

The moment I stepped onto the balcony, the glass door slammed shut behind me.

Through it, I watched Mom lock my bedroom, then the kitchen, then her room and Connor's.

She was protecting the food from me, and the family's money too.

In that house, I wasn't just an outsider.

I was a stranger they had to guard against.

Connor's shoeboxes filled most of the balcony.

I spread out the thin foam sleeping pad I kept in the corner.

When I was little, I had once asked Mom why Connor got everything while I had to pay for anything I touched.

She had looked disappointed in me.

"If it weren't for you, Connor would be our only child. He could have had a much better life.

"Remember this. Everything you have, your brother gave up for you out of kindness."

That was when I learned my birth was a debt, one they owed my brother.

The first time I talked back to him, they made me sleep on the balcony too.

He didn't say anything at the time.

For an entire month, he stopped using every coupon, rebate, and discount he normally used.

On the last day, he finally used a five-dollar coupon on a drink.

Then he looked at me coldly. "Get this straight, Micah. Everything you have is charity from me."

That month, my allowance was five dollars, enough for one night's rent.

I spent the rest of the month on the balcony.

My phone lit up beside me.

It was a message from Dr. Tobias Redmond, my physics competition coach.

"I'll handle the flight and the scholarship paperwork. We leave in five days."

I leaned against the locked balcony door and felt a ribbon of cold air leaking through the frame from the air-conditioned living room.

For the first time that night, I smiled.

Five more days, and I'd finally be gone.