Chapter 3

2

Things happened quickly. So quickly that I didn’t even have time to regret my choice.

It was the Saturday of the second week after I gave up the spot. My mother was working as a day laborer at a construction site, running a thirty-eight-degree fever―literally hauling bricks. She was paid daily, one hundred and fifty a day. She didn’t dare take a day off, because every day she missed meant another day she’d have to borrow for my tuition.

My heart ached for her, so I thought I’d head over to the site to help her out. But before I even reached the construction site, I stopped in front of the Galleria, the most upscale mall in our city. The first floor was nothing but luxury boutiques. I’d never dared to step inside before―just looking at the security guards by the entrance made me feel like I didn’t belong. But as I passed by, I heard a voice I knew all too well.

“Mom―this one! This one looks great!”

It was Chloe.

I felt like I’d been doused in ice water. I froze, looking through the glass facade of the mall at Chloe’s family of four―Chloe, her dad, her mom, and her younger brother who attended a wildly expensive private school. All four of them were picking out clothes in a luxury boutique.

Chloe was wearing a pale pink designer sweatshirt, a new arrival I’d seen on social media last month―it cost nearly four thousand. Her mother―that woman who supposedly had “stage three stomach cancer” and was paying ten thousand per chemotherapy session―looked radiant and rosy-cheeked, holding a brand-new designer bag while checking herself out in the mirror. Her father―the one “swindled out of two hundred thousand”―stood at the register, swiping a card with a relaxed smile.

Beside the register sat a mountain of their spoils―at least five or six shopping bags from various high-end brands. I didn’t even dare to calculate the total cost.

The family of four walked out of the mall’s main entrance, beaming. Chloe’s brother sat on his father’s shoulders, holding a freshly opened ice cream cone. Her mother clutched her father’s arm, fixing her hair in the reflection of the display window. They chatted and laughed all the way to the parking lot. Then, they climbed into a car―a white luxury SUV.

A high-end SUV worth nearly a million.

Since my father passed away, the most expensive purchase my mother and I had made was last winter―a discounted electric blanket from a street vendor. It cost ninety bucks, and we’d been using it for three years.

I stood on the mall steps for I don’t know how long. The sun was hot enough to burn my face, but my hands and feet were ice-cold. It wasn’t the temperature; it was the fact that my blood had stopped running. A single thought played over and over in my head like a broken record―

My father owes debt? My mother has cancer? Can’t afford bread for next month?