My mom said it casually while arranging dishes on the table, like it was no different from asking me to take out the trash. No apology. No hesitation. Just another quiet decision made for me—like always.
I had just gotten back to my parents’ house in an older neighborhood in Phoenix, dragging a suitcase, a backpack, and months of exhaustion behind me.
To them, I had spent that time locked in my room doing “computer stuff.”
To my dad, that meant I was drifting. To my mom, it meant I still didn’t understand “real life” at twenty-five. And to my older sister, Megan, I was everything she warned people not to become.
“Don’t look like that, Lily,” Megan said from the couch, sipping something sparkling. “It’s just one night.”
Her husband, Brian, chuckled under his breath, like he was in on some private joke.
“It’s nicer up there anyway,” he added.
Nicer.
The attic was barely a room—just a folding bed, old boxes, a shaky chair, and a loud fan that barely worked. In the summer heat, it felt like an oven. That wasn’t a guest room. It was where forgotten things were stored.
My dad lowered his newspaper and glanced at me.