Nolan left Pittsburgh for Lisbon three years ago. The city fits him in ways his old life never did. But the friends he left behind still text — about furnaces and divorces and cholesterol and promotions that went to someone else. They never ask how he's doing.

The Weight of Other People is a story about the slow, unsentimental work of recognizing when loyalty has become extraction, and the quiet courage it takes to set down what no one asked you to carry.