Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

Oliver

My day started, like most days, with the smell of smoke in my nose and the flickering light of flames in my eyes. I’d once again dreamed about the day our family house burned down, and the heat still seemed trapped within the scar tissue on my face, despite being nearly fifteen years in the past.

Shaking off the nightmare, I rose for the day and started getting ready. My shift at the coffee shop started early, and the house was blissfully silent at six in the morning. Sitting at the kitchen table by myself, I idly drew a few ideas in my sketchbook with one hand while feeding myself toast with the other. Breakfast was the only time I had to myself, and while I hated waking up so early, I appreciated the silence.

It never lasted for long.

“Shouldn’t you be leaving?” my grandmother said when she eventually emerged from her own bedroom. Technically, the whole house belonged to her. My mother, brother, and I just lived there. However, her old legs could no longer manage the stairs, so we lived upstairs while she stayed on the main floor.

If I didn’t need to use the kitchen, I could have avoided her entirely.

As soon as the thought entered my mind, I chased it away. I should be grateful. She let us live in her house rent free. Without that generosity, there was no telling where we would have ended up.

“I’m leaving soon, Nana,” I said as I packed my bag for the day. My sketchbook joined my barista uniform in the vain hope that I’d be able to draw more on my break.

It never happened, but I continued to remain optimistic.

As I was heading out the door, a car pulled up in front of the house. The woman who stepped out waved cheerfully at me before opening the back seat to collect her supplies.

I waved back, keeping a neutral expression on my face even as my grandmother stepped up beside me.

“Waste of money.”

I sighed. “Nana.” We had the same conversation every morning and never got anywhere. “The nurse needs to be here to help take care of Rowan. Mom has to work, and you can’t manage his care on your own.”

Standing on the front porch of the house, my gaze drifted up to the bedroom window where I knew my brother slept.

Rowan was only fifteen and had been born with Spinal Muscular Atrophy. It weakened his muscles to the point that he needed round the clock care. He put on a brave face, never complaining about his situation, but I knew how much his condition pained him, both emotionally and physically.

My bedroom sat right next to his, and some nights I heard him crying through the walls.

Nana just sniffed in disdain. “Your mother wouldn’t need to waste her money on an at home nurse if you stayed here to take care of him instead of going off to that coffee job. Your salary doesn’t even cover the cost of the nurse. It’s a waste.”

“Mother, stop giving Oliver a hard time,” my own mother interrupted us as she also stepped out onto the porch. “He deserves to have his own life and not be trapped in the house all the time. Besides, an employment gap on his resume could make it harder for him to find work in the future. It’s good that he’s maintaining a job now.

I gave my mother a grateful smile but couldn’t look at her for long. Heavy bags hung under her eyes, blatantly displaying her exhaustion to the world. She was a nurse and worked long hours at the nearby hospital. It helped us keep expenses down, since she could look after Rowan when she wasn’t on shift, but the job ran her ragged.

I couldn’t remember the last time my mother didn’t look exhausted.

“I need to get going.”

With a strained smile on her face, my mother wished me a good day before greeting the at home nurse who was walking up the porch steps.

I left before Nana could say anything else. The bus stop was only a few blocks away, so I didn’t have far to walk. I’d been working at the same cafe since I turned eighteen. Four years of practice allowed me to time the commute perfectly. I arrived just as the bus I needed pulled up, so I didn’t have to wait around.

It was early. The sun had barely made an appearance over the horizon, and a few lingering stars could still be seen in the sky. At such an hour, the bus wasn’t packed yet, so I easily found a seat at the back where I wouldn’t be disturbed.

From there, I had exactly thirty-two minutes before the bus reached my stop near the coffee shop. So, like I did most mornings, I pulled out my sketchbook. Except, this time I didn’t draw. Instead, I opened a folder that I kept hidden at the back of the book.

Since my mother was so busy, I volunteered to help the household by managing our finances. It had started when I was sixteen, and my mother accidentally forgot to pay the bills one too many times. She nearly went to jail, though luckily she managed to avoid such a fate. Between her job and my brother, she just didn’t have the energy to keep track of anything else, so I’d started managing the books for her.

Looking down at the numbers listed on the spreadsheet in my lap, I was once again thankful that I’d taken on the responsibility when I did. My mother didn’t need a daily reminder of how hopeless our situation really was.

There was no sugarcoating it. We were screwed.

When Rowan had been born with SMA, the initial treatments had put us into a lifetime of debt. Then, just a few months after his birth, a house fire had stolen our home. The insurance payout had barely covered my burn treatment, and certainly wasn’t going to buy us a new house. So we’d moved in with Nana.

Since then, Rowan’s condition had improved enough to have a mostly normal lifespan, but SMA was genetic and progressive. It would never go away, and he would need continued treatment the rest of his life. Despite working so hard to pay for everything, it seemed like the financial hole we’d found ourselves in was just as deep as ever.

At the rate we were going, three lifetimes wouldn’t be enough to pay off our debt. It was a hole we could never escape, unless we did something drastic.

Some days, the drastic option didn’t seem so bad.

By the end of the bus ride, I’d managed to pay off a few bills through the banking app on my phone, and recalculated this week’s budget. Rowan only needed treatment every few months, now, instead of every few weeks like when he was a baby, so there was a little more breathing room in between. His next treatment was coming up soon, and I needed to scrape together as much extra money as possible in the meantime to prepare for the inevitable expense.