They Charged Me Rent to Breathe, So I Cut Them Off

1: 1

The SATs were over, and my mother gave my brother a new phone.

She hugged him tight, her eyes red:

My precious boy, you finally made it through.

My father gave him a motorcycle and said grandly,

Once you're at college, go wherever you want, have fun anywhere you like.

Then it was my turn, dragging my heavy luggage inside, and my mother held out a QR code like she was ringing up a stranger:

"Luggage-moving fee, five hundred. Storage fee for your things, five hundred."

"From now until you leave for college, a room fee for staying here, two thousand."

"Three thousand total. Are you scanning to pay, or signing an IOU?"

...

I lowered my head, took out my phone, and scanned it, the way I always did.

For as long as I could remember, my parents had raised me and my brother as a control group.

My brother got the lifting-up kind of parenting.

New clothes he never ran out of, pocket money he never spent to the end.

Private prep schools his whole life.

I got independence education.

For as long as I had memories, I'd been signing IOUs every single day.

Room and board while I lived at home, food, water, electricity...

Every day my mother would total up every expense tied to me and hand me the bill.

Then she'd make me collect trash and sell it to pay off the debt.

"If the day's charges aren't settled, you sign an IOU, and interest accrues at the bank rate."

"If the debt goes past due, your right to live here and your meals are cut off."

At five I couldn't haul enough trash and fell thirty dollars behind.

My mother smashed my rice bowl and dumped my food into the trash in front of me.

Then she threw me out of the house while I screamed and cried.

I slept under a bridge that night.

And watched my parents drop a million dollars to rent out an entire arcade.

For my brother's birthday.

At seven, to scrape together tuition, I went to school and collected bottles like my life depended on it.

Until I got so hungry my blood sugar crashed and I passed out in the street.

But when my mother showed up, all I got was that cold face:

"Sign the IOU for the medical bill first, then you can get in the ambulance."

At nine, the school held a parents' meeting.

My mother and father crowded around my brother.

And I stood there with my head down, holding back tears, while my classmates sneered that I was a nobody bastard no one wanted.

"Me showing up to your parents' meeting is a service contract. It's billed by the minute."

I cried and knelt in front of my classmates, begging money from every direction.

All I wanted was for my mother to sit with me in class for one minute.

But she took the loose change I'd gathered up in my hands and bought my brother an ice cream bar.

And then she rounded on me, furious:

"Cecil Simmons's sweating from the heat, can't you see that? What kind of brother are you?"

"All you care about is your own vanity. You don't even care whether your own family lives or dies. You're nothing but an ungrateful animal."

Then her tone went flat and businesslike.

"There isn't enough commission here. I can't accept your booking."

After that day.

I never argued back against my classmates' jeering again.

All these years, whenever I cried out about how unfair it was.

My parents would round on me like I was a hopeless disappointment:

"You ungrateful thing. Who do you think all this hard bookkeeping, every single day, is for?"

"It's to raise you to stand on your own two feet! Learn now how hard money is to earn, and you'll take fewer wrong turns later."

"Otherwise, out in the real world, who's going to coddle you?"

I heard it enough times that I stopped expecting anything.

And just as I was numbly pulling out my phone to pay.

My mother changed course.

"If you give up your spot at the elite university and go to community college with your brother, you don't have to pay today's charges."

She scooped my brother up, doting, her voice gone soft:

"Cecil is the treasure we spoiled and raised with our own hands. He's not some thick-skinned dirt-poor mule like you."

"Studying somewhere far off, in a place he doesn't know, he'll need someone to look after him."

"Go to community college with him, and I'll give you three hundred a month in living money, plus another two hundred as a nanny's fee."

My brother laughed, smug, off to the side.

"William Simmons, you'd better appreciate a chance like this."

"Five hundred bucks. That's more than you could earn collecting bottles for a whole month."

My eyes dropped, and the bitterness rose in me:

"But I scored a 1590. I'm the top scorer."

"I don't want to go to community college."

My father's face darkened, and his voice went hard:

"A high score doesn't mean good character."

"So young and already so competitive and vain. What's that going to make of you?"

"Go to community college and taste how hard life is for people at the bottom. It'll temper your will! That's how you'll go further once you're out in the world."

I looked at them, and something inside me went cold all the way through.

I was their son too, their own flesh and blood.

Why could everyone only ever see Cecil?

While I could be sacrificed, all of it, anytime they pleased.

My mother met my dead, empty stare, and for a second something guilty flickered across her face.

Then she pushed on, hard:

"Who's that long face for? What's wrong with an older brother looking after his younger one?"

"This is what you should be doing anyway, and now there's even money in it for you. What have you got to be unhappy about?"

"Change your application right now. Don't take the deal and still act sour, or hand me the three thousand."

My brother laughed harder, faking envy:

"You've got it made, big brother. You change a few words and it turns straight into cash."

"Not like me. Once I graduate, I still have to go find a job and earn my own way."

The moment she heard that, my mother's whole face melted with tenderness.

"Silly boy, this family could support you your entire life even if you never lifted a finger."

My father transferred him fifty thousand dollars on the spot.

"Take it and spend it. If it's not enough, just tell Dad."

"The biggest security a boy can have is being raised rich and knowing he's covered. Only mules and workhorses have to go looking for grass to eat."

Something in my chest ached.

So it turned out they weren't incapable of loving a child. They just didn't love me.

"Hurry up and change it. We're taking your brother shopping. Don't waste our time."

My mother pushed me along, impatient.

"Dragging your feet over everything, making the whole family wait on you alone. You really are a lost cause."

But the next second, my fingers moved.

Her phone chimed with a transfer notification.

Ding! $3,000 received.

I won't be changing my application. And I don't want this family anymore.

2: 2

The smile froze on my mother's face.

"William! Have you no shame?"

She hurled her phone straight into my face.

The sharp corner opened a cut across my cheek, and blood welled up along the line.

"All for the empty vanity of some big-name school, you won't even give an inch to your own brother."

"Your father and I raised you all these years for nothing!"

My father's face was iron-gray too, his voice thick with disappointment.

"Eighteen years we raised you, and this is what we get. A heart of stone."

He pointed at the door and snapped,

"Get out!"

"You think your wings are strong now? Then don't set foot in this house again!"

Cecil lay sprawled across the couch, feet up, a smug little smile he couldn't hide tugging at his mouth.

He'd always loved watching me get scolded, watching me forced to back down.

I kept my eyes low. The ache in my chest had already gone numb.

For as long as I could remember, I'd heard this kind of blame that twisted right and wrong. I knew it by heart.

"Fine. I'll go."

I answered quietly, dragged my suitcase around, and turned to leave.

But my mother suddenly gave a cold laugh.

"Since you won't give way for Cecil."

"Then let's settle the whole account."

I turned back and stared at her, dead inside.

"From the day you were born. Eighteen years."

"Every breath of air you've taken in the Simmons house gets billed."

Not a trace of warmth in her voice.

"Paid in full, all at once. One hundred thousand."

A hundred thousand!

Two words, tossed out light as nothing, slammed down hard on my broken heart.

My throat ached. "You're charging me for breathing too?"

"Why not?"

She said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Nothing in this house is free. Why should you get to breathe here for eighteen years for nothing?"

"You don't want to do community college with Cecil, then pay off the hundred thousand."

My father cut in, his tone hard.

"We fed you and kept you all these years. Is a hundred thousand really too much to ask?"

"This is the last chance we're giving you. Don't be an ungrateful fool."

I looked at these cold, heartless people in front of me.

The last small flame of family feeling inside me went out for good.

So this was what I was in this house.

Even being alive was a crime I had to pay off.

"I don't have the money."

My voice came out hoarse.

"No money?"

My mother sneered and pulled out a contract.

"Then sign an IOU."

"At the bank's highest interest rate. Paid off within a year."

She kept her eyes locked on my face the whole time she spoke, like she was waiting for something.

I didn't cry. I didn't argue.

Every bit of the hurt and the anger, I pressed down hard and buried it.

I quietly took the pen she held out and signed my name.

"Miss a payment and I'll take you to court, straight off."

Her eyes were ice-cold.

"I'll put a bad-credit record on you. See if you can ever get a job after that!"

"Fine."

I turned to walk out.

Out of the corner of my eye I caught my mother making a payment on her phone.

With the three thousand I'd just transferred, she was buying Cecil a pair of limited-edition sneakers.

"A coming-of-age gift for my precious boy."

"Whatever other people's kids have, my son gets it too."

I looked down at my own shoes, already worn through with holes, and the old patched school uniform.

Nothing but bitterness on my face.

Same blood. Same flesh and bone.

My brother was the treasure.

And I was the outsider who had to pay to breathe.

To clear that sky-high IOU and scrape together tuition for the elite university,

I found a restaurant that came with room and board and took a part-time job.

Carrying plates, washing dishes, clearing up. Worked till my back wouldn't straighten and still didn't dare rest.

Then, out of nowhere, a gentle figure caught hold of me.

"William?"

It was Maya Delgado.

Something in my chest warmed a little. All the misery of the past days found a moment of comfort.

Maya was what had kept me gritting my teeth and holding on.

Three years of high school.

She'd slip bread into my bag when no one was looking. She'd step in front of me and chase off the kids bullying me.

She'd stand out in the blazing sun collecting plastic bottles with me, cheer me through the most miserable stretches of my life.

We'd promised each other long ago. We'd get into the elite university together.

Start school side by side.

And now, finally, it was about to happen.

She looked at me, her gaze soft, her voice full of pity.

"I heard you're... staying in some temporary dorm?"

"It's a rough crowd around here. You need to be careful."

"Let me hold onto your things for now."

Her eyes were earnest. "It'd be a real mess if your acceptance letter got lost."

I was so grateful I nearly cried.

"Thank you, Maya."

She smiled, gentle as ever. "Don't worry. I've got everything covered."

That night, I collapsed onto the hard board bed in the dorm.

Then my phone buzzed.

It was a post from Cecil.

In the photo, he was in the middle of changing something in the college application field.

And what he had in his hand was my ID!

The caption was cocky and gloating.

Top scorer's working as my personal manservant. That's the kind of pull the young master's got.

Below it, a comment from Maya. Whatever baby wants, baby gets.

It was like being dropped into a pit of ice. I was shaking all over, worse than I could stand.

3: 3

"Maya!"

I called her, my voice cracking.

"Why would you hand my ID over to Cecil? You know exactly what my family is like!"

On the other end, Maya's voice was still gentle.

But there was a strange chill under it.

"Will, be reasonable."

"It's too dangerous for Cec to go somewhere far off on his own. It's not like home out there. He'd have to do his own laundry, his own cleaning, everything."

"He's a boy. No one to look after him. How's he supposed to save face?"

My heart was bleeding. My voice shook. "And me? I'm not a boy?"

She had no answer for that.

"Enough. You were raised on independence education."

There was an edge of impatience now. "You're used to living rough by now, aren't you?"

"Cec is different. He was spoiled his whole life. He's never known a hard day."

"You'd only be looking after your own little brother. It's not some huge thing. Don't be so selfish."

I swallowed the pain and gave a bitter laugh.

"Maya, you know I scored a 1590."

She paused, and pity slid into her tone.

"If you want Northgate, then wait until Cec graduates."

"By then I can tutor you. You get some online degree, just enough to say you went. Good enough."

"Once we're married, I'll take care of you for the rest of your life. It won't matter where you went to school."

The pain turned into laughter, shaking laughter.

So the salvation I'd believed in all along was a lie.

She thought so too. That I could only ever be Cecil's accessory.

I hung up.

I tore out of the restaurant dorm like something had come loose in me.

My ID stolen, my applications tampered with. I had to get to the admissions office and correct my information before the deadline.

This was the one way out I'd earned, ground out of eighteen years of suffering.

But the second I reached the lobby doors, I ran straight into a group of people.

My parents. Cecil.

And Maya, her fingers laced through his.

My father was holding up a stack of cash, waving it around grandly.

"Today's my son's birthday. We're renting out the whole restaurant!"

Maya laughed along.

"Today Cec is the king. Anyone who keeps him happy gets a two-hundred-dollar tip."

The waitstaff around them exploded with excitement.

I hung back where my parents couldn't see me, listening to the envy pour out around me.

"God, they spoil him rotten!"

"His girlfriend's gorgeous, family's loaded too. A real rich kid."

"What a happy family. They must have earned some serious good luck in a past life."

It hit me a beat too late.

Today was my birthday too.

And no one remembered.

My eyes dropped to my own wrist without meaning to.

A faded red string.

Last year, on my birthday, Maya had tied it on herself.

Back then she had sworn, so sure of it.

"Every birthday from now on, I'll be there with you, right to the very end."

The vow from back then was nothing but a joke now.

The instant our eyes met, the color drained from Maya's face.

She let go of Cecil's hand in a panic.

"Will..."

I didn't answer. I turned and walked away.

But I'd barely rounded the corner.

When a huge force slammed into me from behind, straight into my side.

It was Cecil.

I went down before I could catch myself.

My palm split open on the edge of a step, and blood came fast.

The pain broke me out in a cold sweat.

Hearing the commotion, my parents rushed to Cecil's side first to comfort him.

No one even glanced my way.

Cecil buried himself in our father's arms, sobbing like a wronged child.

"I only wanted to invite my brother to celebrate with us..."

"But he just threw himself down on his own and started screaming."

"Did I do something wrong? Is that why my brother would set me up like this..."

One breath, and up was down, black was white.

My parents' faces went dark.

My mother's hand came up and cracked across my face.

"So young and already pulling these filthy tricks, harming your own family!"

"Did everything you read rot straight out of your head?"

"I didn't."

I forced the words out through my teeth. "He ran into me."

"Enough! Cec was raised up his whole life, given everything he ever wanted."

"Why would he need to hurt himself? Just to frame gutter trash like you?"

My father jabbed a finger at my face, his whole expression thick with disappointment.

"You've got a good home and you won't come back to it. Out here playing the poor waiter, milking sympathy. Who are you trying to guilt-trip?"

"You disgraceful thing. Apologize to your brother. Now!"

I'd stopped expecting anything, and still my heart ached.

Cecil was the hope the whole family was propping up, so whatever he said was right.

And everything about me had some ugly motive behind it.

The restaurant owner, terrified of getting dragged into it, hurried over and snapped at me.

"This place can't hold someone as important as you."

"You're fired!"

Maya watched me, something complicated in her eyes.

In the end she just sighed.

"They're your elders. Just apologize."

Under the scorn and the sneers of every waiter there.

I clutched my bleeding hand and stumbled out like a dog kicked away from the feast.

Maya started to reach for me.

Then Cecil pulled her off to sing happy birthday.

I gritted my teeth and ran flat out to the admissions office. This was my last chance at Northgate.

Shaking, I pulled out the fifty-dollar review fee and pushed it toward the window.

My voice was earnest. "Ma'am, I'd like to request a review of my application information."

The clerk took the bill and shot me a look.

The next second, two security guards rushed me.

They pinned me against the wall.

"You've got the nerve to pass counterfeit cash? You want to go to prison?"

4: 4

My head buzzed, and my eyes stung and went hot with panic.

"Counterfeit?"

"That's impossible. This is my paycheck. I just got it!"

I fumbled all three hundred dollars out onto the counter.

The clerk said flatly that every bill was fake.

The guard's face went cold, and he marched me straight out the door.

"You're young, so we'll let it go this once."

"Do it again, and we'll turn it over to the police."

I ran back to the restaurant, pale with anger, and found the owner.

He just shrugged like it was nothing.

"Your parents swapped the money out. Said it was to toughen up your life skills."

Toughen up?

I started to laugh, and my whole face was wet with tears.

Their idea of toughening me up was to destroy everything I'd worked for, and I was supposed to be grateful for it?

I walked home like something that had already died.

The second Mom saw me, her face twisted into a sneer.

"Well, look who deigned to come back. Our little independent gentleman."

She smiled wide, gloating. "Now you see how dangerous the world out there really is."

"You're only safe when you're here with your family."

I put out my hand, numb.

"Give me my money back."

Dad slammed the table and shot to his feet.

"Money, money, money, that's all you think about."

"How did I ever raise such a greedy, ungrateful animal?"

"You ruined Cec's birthday party, come home without one word of apology, and open your mouth only to demand money."

With that, he shoved me straight out the door.

"Get out there and think about what you did. Don't come back until you know you were wrong."

"And in three days we're throwing Cec his party for acing the SATs. You are going to apologize to him in front of everyone."

"Otherwise, don't ever set foot through this door again."

I walked down the stairs with no expression on my face.

And there were Cecil and Maya, wrapped in each other's arms.

"Maya, that idea of yours was genius."

"Getting Mom to swap Will's paycheck for counterfeit bills like that."

Maya laughed, doting on him.

"That's our little secret. Don't tell William, or he'll throw another fit."

So it had been her idea.

The pain of it took my breath away.

Because she knew me, she knew exactly where to stick the knife to make it hurt most.

I held back the tears and left without a sound.

Passing the trash can, I snapped the red string off my wrist and threw it in.

Once I was out of the complex, I opened my hand.

The ID I'd taken back.

I logged in to the application page one more time, just before the deadline.

My finger hovered over the elite university, then paused. Without hesitating, I changed it to Northgate University.

More than a thousand miles away.

From now on, this family and Maya, I never wanted to see any of them again.

Once the submission went through, I let out a breath.

It felt like I'd come back to life.

At that same moment, a text came in from Maya.

Don't be angry anymore. From now on I'll take time off to come see you and Cec all the time.

You've always been so capable, ever since you were little. You need to look out for your brother more.

For the party in three days, buy him a gift to smooth things over. If you're short on cash, I'll pay you back.

I didn't answer. I opened the ticketing app instead.

I borrowed five hundred dollars from a classmate.

Dragging my suitcase, I headed straight for the station.

And in the exact instant the train began to move,

my phone lit up, message after message from Maya pouring in.