I was seventeen the night my mother told me to get out.
It wasn’t dramatic. No screaming. No shattered plates. Just a tired voice from behind a half-closed bedroom door.
“You’re not my responsibility anymore, Tyler.”
Three days later, hungry and sunburned, I saw the ad taped to a corkboard inside a feed store outside Jefferson City:
“Old Quonset hut. Rusty but standing. $6. Must move or leave on site.”
I stared at the paper for a long time. Six dollars was everything I had left.
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