My Grandfather Exposed The Truth About Ten Years Of Savings And My Parents Froze

I was fine. I was also perpetually exhausted in the specific way of someone running on four hours of sleep and peanut butter and a belief that the discomfort was temporary and character-building and her own fault for not having managed things better. I stacked books at the university library. I served coffee at a diner until two in the morning. I tutored freshmen in subjects I was still learning myself. My hands were always slightly shaky from insufficient sleep and I had learned to drink coffee in quantities that kept me functional without tipping into trembling.

There was a night in my sophomore year when I had four dollars, no food, and a midterm the following morning that required a textbook I didn’t own. The textbook cost one hundred and twenty dollars. I bought it and drank water for dinner and told myself it was fine, it was fine, it was fine. This was the same night I saw a photograph Lily had posted of herself at a restaurant with her sorority sisters, holding a glass of wine with the particular ease of someone who has never had to choose between eating and studying. My parents had commented on the photograph. They said she looked beautiful. They mentioned they had sent her a little extra for the dress she wanted.

I sat on my cold apartment floor, my stomach cramping from hunger, and looked at the photograph for a long time. I didn’t feel anger. I felt something emptier than anger. I felt the specific confusion of someone who has been following rules carefully and cannot understand why the rules keep producing the same result.