Eight thousand dollars.
My mother transferred twenty-five hundred to Brody every month just for gaming top-ups.
But I couldn't scrape together eight thousand for tuition.
I'd already asked every roommate I had. Everyone had just started the semester. Nobody had money to spare. Between all of them, I'd collected two hundred and thirty dollars. Nowhere close to eight thousand.
Then I remembered the tin box at the bottom of my dorm closet.
I'd been saving since middle school. Three years of collecting recyclables, running errands for neighbors, selling old textbooks at the end of each semester. Fives and tens, folded and tucked inside one by one.
Last time I counted, there was almost four hundred dollars in there.
I ran home and dug out the box. Opened it.
Empty.
The box was empty.
I stood frozen, turning it over and over in my hands, confirming there wasn't a single bill left inside.
Then it came back to me, slowly. Last month, my mother had come to tidy my room. She said she'd hold on to my pocket money for safekeeping. So I wouldn't waste it.
At the time, I'd actually felt relieved. I thought it would be safer with her.
Now the empty box sat in my hands, and all I felt was cold.