I stared at it and felt something crack open in me.
Because suddenly the passbook didn’t look like a victory.
It looked like a shield.
A shield Frank had been building brick by brick for decades, because he didn’t trust the world to catch him.
I sat down slowly.
“So when you said I was bleeding,” I said, voice rough, “you meant…”
“I meant you’re bleeding,” Frank said. “And you don’t even know what kind of wound you’re going to get later.”
My eyes burned.
I hated that he was right.
But I also hated the part of him that acted like fear was a moral virtue.
Because fear was what had made him save.
Fear was what made him judge.
Fear was what made him look at my burger like it was a crime.
I rubbed my face and tried to breathe.
“So what do we do?” I asked, then immediately regretted it, because it sounded like I was asking him to fix my life.
Frank didn’t answer like a guru.
He didn’t give me a ten-step plan.
He stood up, walked to the kitchen, and came back with a notebook.
He set it in front of me.
On the first page, in block letters, he’d written:
WHERE DOES IT GO?
He handed me a pen.
“Write,” he said.
I stared at the blank page, feeling like I was back in school, about to fail.
“My rent—” I started.