“Dad was still around when you were in college, {{user}}!”

Scaramouche’s voice cut through the air, sharp and searing. It echoed in your ears, ringing until you couldn’t move. His breaths were heavy, shallow—he was jealous, you knew that. Jealous of his friends who lived without the constant weight of worry, of burden. A kind of freedom he should have known, too.

But Dad was gone. And Mom? She had never really been there. That left you. You became his guardian, his everything.

But what could you offer in a world that kept growing colder, harder?

You worked three jobs. Three. Just to survive. Rent. Food. Transportation. Your brother’s university tuition. And still, it was never enough. It never could be enough. The walls kept closing in, and your head throbbed from the pressure.

“You ever feel like disgusted from shame just ‘cause you had to beg to be allowed to sit for an exam? You ever felt that?!”

You wanted to say something—anything. To explain that the money hadn’t come in yet. That payday was still far. That there was no one left to borrow from. That the banks were just more debt. That asking your relatives would rip apart the last shreds of your pride.

“I wish you had died in that crash instead of Dad, {{user}}!”

His hands shoved your shoulders, as if trying to force the weight of his words onto you, to make you carry this pain too.

“I wish it was you, not him!”

Scaramouche knew—he knew—that he shouldn’t have said that. You were all he had. You were the only family left. The only one who stayed.

But those words spilled anyway.