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I longed for that feeling - that sense of peace and contentment. But I carried too much guilt, I always would.
My big brother had always been the best and the brightest. Jon was going to be the first in the family to go to college.
Until I messed it all up.
When I was in tenth grade, I tried to sneak out the window of our third-floor apartment to go to a stupid party with my stupid friends - it’s funny how fast you can go from feeling like something is the most important thing in the universe to wondering what the hell you were thinking.
Instead of the ninja-level exit I had planned, I fell - hard. Like probably should have died level of hard. No one who saw the site of the fall could believe I walked away from it.
I lived, but I was far from unscathed. I broke my arm in four places, and needed two surgeries to make it right. Mom blew through what little savings she had, and then maxed out all her credit cards just to put me back together.
She joked that all the king’s horses didn’t come cheap, but there was a tightness in her voice when she said it that let you know it wasn’t really a joke.
So Jon had gone into the Army instead of college, hoping to take advantage of the G.I. bill when he got out. He had almost immediately been injured in a car accident off base.
Now he was using a wheelchair to get around, and I was hoping to get a nursing degree so I could help him, financially and physically.
The Hawthorne family was cursed, I was sure of it. Nursing skills might be the only thing that could save us.
Pottsboro Community College, about two hours outside of Philadelphia, had a good nursing program. And more importantly, the classes were affordable, and they were further supplemented by a scholarship from the Women’s Foundation, as long as I kept my GPA above a three-point-five.
Which wasn’t an issue. I was a good student. But the fact that I was living in a broom closet of an apartment over a hardware store and working as many shifts at the diner as I could to cover classes and used textbooks didn’t make it easy.
The bell over the door rang, and I was relieved to see the creepy guy was leaving.
Thank goodness. I wouldn’t have wanted to leave before him. He had my radar tingling enough that I would have been afraid he might follow me.
I headed over to bus his table. He had left a crumpled one-dollar-bill beside the coffee cup. That seemed about right for taking up my table for two hours.
Jerk.
“You can go on home, love,” Sally called to me, her golden earrings dangling among her bright red curls as she spoke.
I wondered if she had been waiting for him to leave before dismissing me too. She was very perceptive when it came to stuff like that.
As far as I could tell, Sally was in her seventies, and showed no sign of slowing down anytime soon. Her flashy costume jewelry, all purchased from a cousin who sold for a mail-order company, and her exciting dating life were her favorite subjects of conversation. In another life, I would have gotten to know her better. In this one, it took every morsel of time I had to stay on top of my studies while working.
“Thank you so much, Sally,” I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Take an Uber,” she advised me. “It’s dark out.”
I nodded, but we both knew I wasn’t going to take her advice. A ride home would blow half of what I had earned on my shift, and I couldn’t afford that luxury.
I cashed out quickly and went into the back to hang up my apron.
“Good night, Daniel,” I called to the cook on my way to the door.
“Night, sweetheart,” he yelled back, holding a styrofoam box over the counter. “Grilled cheese for the road?”
“You’re a lifesaver,” I said as I took it.
The box was extra heavy, which told me he’d snuck fries in there, too - maybe even some onion rings, if I was lucky. I was entitled to an employee meal, and I always chose the grilled cheese. But Daniel usually hooked me up with a little extra if he could.
“Do you have a gig tonight?” I asked.
“Nah, night off,” he said. “I have my son tomorrow.”
“That’s great,” I told him sincerely. “See you later.”
