At Christmas dinner, my sister lifted her glass, smiled like she was delivering a punchline, and introduced me to her boyfriend with one sentence: “This is the failure of our family.”

I dropped out two weeks later, not because I lacked intelligence or grit, but because sometimes people lose to arithmetic long before they lose to ability. No one helped me pack. No one asked what I needed. I shoved my clothes and two notebooks into trash bags, carried them down three flights of stairs by myself, and moved into a tiny studio above a laundromat because it was all I could afford on short notice.

The machines below ran late into the night and started before dawn. Their constant thumping vibrated through the floorboards like a restless mechanical heartbeat. The paint peeled in the corners. One window rattled whenever trucks passed. The kitchenette smelled faintly of old grease no matter how much bleach I used. The desk I found on Craigslist wobbled if I breathed too hard near it.

It was ugly. It was exhausting. It was mine.