Chapter 1

Outside my room, my parents, Hugh and Veda Pruitt, were packing my younger brother Miakel's things while reminding him, "I'll talk to your teacher and see if I can get you and your brother assigned to the same dorm room.

"That way, whenever you need to change your sheets, get food, or pick up a package, Quinton can do it for you. It'll make things easier. After all, your brother was born to look after you."

At those words, tears streamed down my face again.

Ever since I was old enough to understand things, Mom had constantly told me to look after Mikael.

Whenever he ran short of spending money, she would take mine and tell me to help him out.

Whenever he left questions unanswered on a test, she would take my completed paper, replace my name with his, and let him turn it in.

The best food and toys in the house always went to him first.

But whenever he did something wrong, I was always the one who got punished.

I sniffled as I listened to the admissions officer on the other end of the phone tell me it wasn't too late to make arrangements. My whole body went limp, and I collapsed onto my bed.

The relief of having narrowly escaped disaster left me too choked up to speak.

I had barely hung up when my bedroom door was pushed open.

The chair I had wedged behind it scraped loudly across the floor.

"Quinton, why do you have a chair behind the door?" Mom frowned and kicked it aside.

"Because the lock is broken."

"Oh. I'll have your father fix it later."

"Mom, I've heard you say that for three years."

Mikael had broken the lock three years ago. Ever since, my parents had kept promising to fix it, but they had never gotten around to it.

Meanwhile, when the light in Mikael's room went out, he had a new one the very next day.

When he accidentally bumped his head against the corner of his desk one morning, Dad carried a brand-new desk into his room that afternoon.

Smiling, he patted Mikael's head and said, "I've had the corners made childproof. You won't hurt yourself again."

Mikael asked what they were going to do with his old desk.

Dad said, "We'll move it into Quinton's room."

And so my room gradually filled up with things Mikael no longer wanted. His desk, chair, lamp, bedsheets... Even my phone was one he'd discarded after upgrading.

I looked down at the phone I'd just finished charging. The battery percentage was visibly dropping before my eyes.

I couldn't help asking, "Mom, Mikael got a new phone. Could you get me one too? It doesn't have to be expensive. Something for a little over a hundred dollars would be fine."

Mom was holding a plate of apples that had already started turning brown. She set it down beside my desk. "Why don't you just use Mikael's old phone? He got a new one, didn't he?"

From outside the room, Mikael shouted, "No way, Mom! My old phone has tons of pictures on it. I can't give it to Quinton!"

Mom turned back to me. "Then keep using the one you have. It's not broken, is it?"

Staring at my phone, whose screen had gone completely black, I finally burst into tears. "Why? Why can't I have a new phone? Am I just supposed to use everything Mikael doesn't want?"