Savannah was six years younger than me, beautiful, charismatic, and protected from consequences in ways that eventually became a skill. I started in real estate at nineteen under an agent named Mason Pierce, who taught me the real business: not salesmanship, but steadiness. By twenty-one I was licensed. By twenty-six I was building something real. During those same years, Savannah drifted through expensive reinventions—cosmetology school, influencer dreams, boutique consulting, social media strategy. My parents called it exploring her gifts. I called it expensive.
Credit found her fast. So did debt.
A leased SUV. Maxed cards. Personal loans. “Women in wealth” courses financed at absurd interest. Rent she couldn’t cover. Medical bills she refused to open because the envelopes gave her anxiety. Every month the same refrain: she’s trying, she’s under pressure, we can’t let her drown.
And every time, the same assumption underneath it: Ethan will figure it out.