When I was 15, I used to think my family was just a little dramatic, not broken, just loud,

When I was 15, I used to think my family was just a little dramatic, not broken, just loud, proud, and a bit emotionally clumsy. But by the time I turned 23, I understood that some families don't accidentally hurt you. They aim. My name's Mason, and last month I passed my welding certification exam. It took six years of odd jobs, night shifts, and early mornings at community college to get there.
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 Six years of sweating through steel fumes and holding flashcards while my hands were too tired to grip a coffee muck. And the night before my exam, the single most important day of my life, my mom cornered me in the kitchen and said, your brother needs help moving his couch. I wish that was a joke. I didn't grow up thinking I was the invisible one.

It just sort of happened slowly, like a water leak under the floorboards. My older brother Chase was always the golden child. He was the kid who got his name painted on the wall above his bed, complete with a little football and two stars on either side. While I shared a room with peeling wallpaper in a bunk bed that creaked like it was begging to be put down, chase was three years older than me and somehow always three steps ahead.

When he barely graduated high school, my parents threw him a backyard barbecue. When I made the dean's list my first semester, mom glanced at the email and said, that's nice, honey. Can you take the trash out? Chase didn't really do school. He floated between jobs like a leaf in the wind, gym receptionist, then real estate in turn.

Then something involving cryptocurrency that never quite made sense and ended with him accidentally maxing out dad's second credit card. Meanwhile, I picked up weekend shifts at the scrap yard and studied on breaks because welding didn't come easy to me and neither did sleep. I'm not the genius type.

I'm the grinded out type. The one who gets up at five and learns by repetition. But in my house, chase could breathe wrong and get praised for his lung capacity. I could be bleeding from both hands and get asked why I was making a mess. It wasn't all bad, I guess. My grandma, dad's mom was the only one who seemed to see me.

She used to call me Maze, the maker, because I was always building things, even with scraps. She passed away when I was 17, and whatever small buffer I had from the family hierarchy went with her. After that. I was just the spare son, the helper, the errand runner, the one who always had time because apparently having goals wasn't real unless you wore a suit or posted about it on Instagram and Chase.

He moved into an overpriced apartment last year with his girlfriend now X, and when that imploded, because of course it did, he decided to downgrade to something more modest. That modest place was a duplex, 25 minutes across town with a second floor walkup and a couch that apparently weighed as much as his ego.

He waited until the night before my exam to mention it. I was in the living room, cross-legged on the carpet with my notes spread out like a shrine to pipe angles and safety codes. He walked in like he still lived there. Technically he'd moved out, but the house still had his scent. Expensive cologne and entitlement.

Yo maze. He said flicking a rolled up pair of socks at my leg like we were 12 again. Need your help tomorrow morning. Couch is a beast. I blinked at him. Tomorrow's my welding test. He paused. Oh right. You're still doing that? Still doing that. I looked over at my mom who was making tea in the kitchen. She hadn't said anything yet.
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