When I asked Melissa to share my home, I pictured Sunday dinners, movie nights, and maybe finally feeling like a family again. Instead, I came back from a grocery run to find my sixteen-year-old brother’s life dumped on the porch like trash—and Melissa standing there like she’d just done me a favor.
My name is Brandon. Two years ago our parents died and I became the legal guardian of my kid brother, Liam. He was fourteen, shell-shocked, and suddenly living in a new town with a new school and no parents. I traded weekend plans for parent-teacher conferences and learned how to stretch a paycheck so he could keep playing soccer, keep eating decent food, keep being a kid.
Liam responded by growing up faster than anyone should have to. He works two part-time jobs, pays for his own clothes and gas, and still makes honor roll. We’re a team: he cracks jokes when I stress over bills, and I proof his English essays at midnight. Anyone who wants into my life needs to understand that.
Melissa knew the story. She cooed sympathy when I first told her, called me “such a good brother,” promised Liam she’d teach him to cook something besides ramen. So after a year of dating, I asked her to move in. Her one condition: she wouldn’t chip in for rent because “couples shouldn’t complicate love with money.” I should’ve heard the warning bell then.
Moving day felt hopeful. Boxes rolled in, the house smelled like cardboard and possibility, and Liam left for school wishing us luck. I headed to the store to grab ingredients for Melissa’s favorite pasta—fresh basil, good parmesan, the expensive noodles she loves—imagining our first night as a household.
Thirty minutes later I turned onto our street and slammed the brakes. Liam’s backpack lay on the lawn beside garbage bags stuffed with his clothes, his books, even the Xbox he saved six months to buy. The front door was propped open like a mouth ready to swallow everything familiar.
Melissa stepped out, wiping her hands. “Oh, you’re back. Good. I got a lot done.”
Before I could speak, Liam appeared at the end of the sidewalk, frozen between school and the wreckage of his bedroom on the grass. His voice was small. “Brandon… what’s going on?”
Melissa answered for me. “Honey, you’re sixteen. Couples need space. Time to grow up and stop freeloading.”
Freeloading. The kid who pays for his own groceries and helps with the electric bill when my hours get cut. I saw red.
I told Melissa exactly where she could put her boxes—back into the same truck they’d come off that morning. She tried the “I was only helping you set boundaries” routine, but the boundary was clear: anyone who thinks my brother is disposable can find another porch to stand on.
While she re-packed, Liam and I hauled his life back inside. By sunset the only thing gone was Melissa. We collapsed on the couch amid half-unpacked cardboard and laughed until our ribs hurt—because sometimes the fastest way to spot the wrong person is watching how they treat the right people.
Liam bumped my shoulder. “Team?”
“Always,” I said. “Home team for life.”
“Always,” I said. “Home team for life.”