“I found a busted laptop. If I fix it, maybe we can sell it for two hundred.”
That was Eli—always trying to salvage light from rubble. He forced down a few bites of beans. I saved the rest for lunch I knew he’d skip.
That night, he fell asleep sitting up, worn down from chasing scraps. I pulled him into my lap and held him. Two years out of school, and we were living like castaways—rationing food, power, and dignity.
He fixed the laptop. We sold it for $150. It bought us one more week.
Then everything cracked. I came home to wires everywhere and Eli with his head in his hands.
“I told Mrs. Chen I could fix hers. I broke it worse,” he said.
She’d already paid him. Now we owed money we didn’t have.
“I’m tired, Eli,” I snapped. “I do everything. And we’re still drowning.”
He didn’t argue. He just walked out.
That night I cried next to the broken computer and a notebook full of job rejections. When Eli returned, he didn’t speak. He just pulled a blanket over me and slept on the floor.
For days, we drifted around each other like ghosts. He picked up more odd jobs. I took work that didn’t need a degree—just desperation.
Then the call came.
“Eli collapsed,” Mrs. Hernandez said.
I dropped everything. At urgent care, he sat pale, hooked to an IV, whispering, “Just dizzy.”
The doctor told the truth: hunger. Stress. Exhaustion.
At home, I tucked him into bed and held his hand.
“You scared me,” I whispered.
“I’m sorry for what I said.”
“You weren’t wrong,” he said.
“But I wasn’t right, either.”
That night, I made soup from what we had. He ate every spoonful.
I widened my job search—no more waiting on dreams. I found a remote admin job that cared about hustle, not degrees. A week later, I got the offer.
When the first paycheck hit, Eli left a note: “Fire escape. Now.”
There he was—blanket, two sandwiches, wildflowers in a chipped coffee mug.
“Technically not theft,” he grinned.
We ate under a pink-stained sky, and for the first time in months, we didn’t talk about survival—we just lived.
“We can eat real food now,” he said through tears after our first real grocery trip. And we did. Meat. Vegetables. Flavor. I told him I’d saved enough to get him back to trade school.
“I did the math,” I said—and this time, the numbers worked.
Weeks later, we sat at a real table, under real lights, eating seasoned food from real plates.
He was smiling. Cheeks full. Hands warm in mine.
“You’re eating,” I whispered.
And for the first time in a long time, we weren’t just surviving.
We were full.