I’m sitting here in my own kitchen and i feel like a guest in a house I pay for every single month while my knees are screaming because I spent ten hours on a concrete slab today. It’s nearly 10pm and I just want to go to sleep but I’m sitting here with this plate of pasta that tastes like cardboard because all I can see is Mark across from me wearing a sweater that probably cost more than my work boots and he’s doing that thing where he leans back and talks about his "potential" while he scoops up another forkful of food I bought. I can feel the heat rising up my neck and I know Sarah is watching me from the stove, just waiting for the moment he stops talking so she can give me that look—the one that says I’m the bad guy if I don’t help out her family. And then it happens, right on cue, he starts talking about this "incredible opportunity" that just needs a little bit of seed money to get off the ground and he’s looking at me with those wide eyes like he’s doing me a FAVOR by letting me in on it. He’s twenty-nine and he hasn’t held a job for more than three months since I met him but he has the audacity to talk to me about "market trends" while I have sawdust in my hair and my hands are literally shaking from the vibration of the jackhammer. I just keep chewing and smiling and nodding because if I open my mouth I’m afraid I’m going to lose my mind and say every single thing I’ve been holding back for two years and it’s pathetic how much I’m terrified of making Sarah cry. Sarah moves behind him and starts rubbing my shoulders and it’s not a nice gesture it’s a TENSION check, she’s gauging how much resistance I’m going to put up before she leans down and whispers something about how "it’s just until next month" and "he’s really trying this time" even though we both know that’s a lie. I look at my bank account on my phone under the table and I see the rent for next month and the insurance and the truck payment and I realize that if I give him this two thousand dollars I’m going to be working double shifts for the next six weeks just to break even. This city is eating me alive and I’m out here breaking my back so this guy can live in a fantasy world where he’s an entrepreneur instead of a deadbeat.