Rose
Two Weeks Later
Ithink I had overestimated how LeCharles had felt after our meeting.
He had never sent me a message. He had never said a word to me since. If I didn’t know any better, it would have been as if LeCharles didn’t exist anymore.
For the first long weekend, I just figured he needed time to process everything. During the weekdays, I distracted myself enough with work and imagined he had his own club commitments that I didn’t mind it as much, though it was starting to wear on me. Once the prior weekend had come without a reply, though, I got so stressed that I felt no choice but to give up what we could have had.
It didn’t feel possible to recoup it. For over a week to go by and him to say nothing? LeCharles wasn’t someone who went slow when he needed to think on something. He acted decisively and with vigor. So if he hadn’t said anything by now...
By Monday, although a small part of me still held out hope, I ultimately gave up the notion that he was going to reach out. I didn’t know how I was going to date in a town this small, so instead, I decided to look forward to, corny as it sounded, dating myself. And that started with checking my bank account Friday morning to relish the first paycheck that would hit my bank account.
I didn’t have to work today, so I didn’t set an alarm, but even so, I still found myself waking up just at the crack of dawn. Immediately, it was time to see what had hit my bank account, which could finally give me some relief. I could go furniture shopping, I could go clothes shopping. I could get Shiloh some better food and equipment... I could do so many things that I hadn’t done yet! I could make it so that my life wouldn’t be a complete and utter shit show!
That was the hope, at least.
I held up the phone to my face, confirming visual identity. I opened my bank app and reconfirmed it. I waited for it to load.
And there it was.
A deposit for…
Under nine hundred dollars.
Had I done my math right? I hadn’t put myself down for any 401(k) withdrawals, as I needed money more than I needed retirement. I thought I’d put myself down for some federal withholdings, but...
I stared at the number—eight hundred eighty-six dollars and twenty-three cents.
What in the actual fuck?
I knew money would be tight. I knew that I wasn’t going to have a lot of room to operate.
But considering I was only going to make just over seventeen hundred dollars for the month, and nearly eleven hundred of that went to rent, and then I had debt to pay off…
How the fuck was I going to make this work? It wasn’t just a matter of “oh, I need to be more careful with how I spend my money.” I barely had any money to be careful with! And now it was even less than I had anticipated!
This was an unmitigated disaster. I had gone from someone in her early twenties who dreamed of making six figures as a doctor someday to someone who was now in her early thirties, making a joke of an hourly figure as a vet tech. I was horrified. I had hit some emotional rock bottoms before, but this was pretty damn well close to financial rock bottom.
How was I ever supposed to make myself stable? How was I ever supposed to be in a spot where I could save money and not have to live paycheck to paycheck? And I wasn’t even fucking living in a good place! I was in a small town on the outside of Los Angeles in a crappy apartment that probably had more actual convicts than a local prison did.
What. The. Fuck!
Was my life that much in a shithole now? Was I reduced to... to this?
I tossed my phone away from me. It sounded like it flipped a few times on the floor, but what did it matter? I didn’t deserve a phone like that. I was too poor and undeserving of it.
“Goddamnit,” I muttered. “God fucking damnit.”
Shiloh peered into the room, gently pushing the door open with his face. He looked at me with concerned eyes and perked up ears.
“I can’t, Shiloh, I can’t,” I said, feeling tears starting to form in my eyes. “I’m sorry. I failed. I fucking failed, okay?”
I felt tears streamind down my cheeks. Everything I’d touched in the last decade had, instead of turning to gold like the Midas Touch, had turned into rotting decay. The only thing that I hadn’t touched with that effect was this wonderful dog, and at the rate things were going...
I refused to allow myself to think like that. It was too hard. I didn’t want to imagine a world without this beautiful boy. He was really all I had left.
“I don’t know what to do,” I said through sobs.
