We Were Broke and Broken—Until Rock Bottom Fed Us Something Real
We were broke—really broke. Dinner was rice and beans eaten under the dull glow of dollar store solar lights. My husband, Eli, was wasting away—too stressed to eat, too tired to try. I was holding us together: the meals, the bills, the hope. Until I couldn’t anymore.
He sat across from me, a shadow of the man I married, his T-shirt sagging off his frame.
“You didn’t eat lunch again, did you?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Forgot. Wasn’t hungry.”
But I knew better. His stomach had been twisted in knots ever since another job ghosted him.
Our table was a battlefield—unopened bills, eviction notices, student loan reminders. My paralegal degree still hung on the wall like a cruel joke. Eli broke the silence with the tiniest flicker of hope.
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