Chapter 11
Ajori
Istood behind the register, mindlessly tapping in numbers, but my thoughts were nowhere near the beeping scanner or the faint smell of produce. Every now and then, I’d blink hard, as if I was trying to snap out of a daze. I just couldn’t stop thinking about the money.
Thirty thousand dollars.
I still couldn’t believe it.
When I got home that night, the first thing I did was lock the bathroom door, dump the money on the floor, and count every single bill by hand. My fingers were literally shaking. I’d never evenseenthat much money in person before, let alone held it.
Yeah, Marcos seemed cool. Butthatgenerous? No way in hell I saw that coming.
The timing couldn’t have been better, though.
It was Kyrin’s 10th birthday.
With his condition, every birthday was a milestone I never took for granted. Life for him wasn’t measured in years; it was measured in moments.
Good days… bad days… and days where I found myself praying he’d wake up with enough energy to smile.
I had to appreciate every smile, every joke, every little victory when it came to him.
I’d already bought Kyrin a few birthday gifts—the kind I never thought I’d be able to give him. I finally got him his own PS5. He’d been sharing Lainey’s at her house for months, but it was more hers than his, since she bought it and loved playing too. Now that he finally had one, he didn’t have to wait his turn to play. I also grabbed him some of the games he loved, and some controllers, not the basic ones either. I bought the best and coolest designs I could find that I knew his little eyes would light up at. I even ordered him a gaming chair that looked like you needed a license just to sit in it. It was being shipped, though. Lastly, I planned to load up his accounts with V-Bucks and Roblox gift cards. That boy stayed asking for them and I stayed telling him, “maybe next time.”
Well… this time, he was getting all of it.
That evening, I’d finally get to surprise him. Just imagining his reaction made my eyes sting.
Not to be mistaken, I didn’t plan on running wild with the money. That wasn’t splurge money; that was lifeline money. I put fifteen thousand away immediately for Kyrin’s surgery, hidden away in a shoe box under the bed. I didn’t think anybody would steal it. Vanessa might’ve been a party animal, but not a thief. Still, I planned to find a better hiding spot for it later, in case Kyrin stumbled upon it and started asking questions I wasn’t ready to answer. But for the time being, just knowing that money was in my possession felt like breathing for the very first time.
The other fifteen?
That went towards Kyrin’s birthday gifts, catching up on the bills that haunted me, getting Kyrin some new school clothesand shoes, buying myself a new laptop for school, and… last but not least, an overdue spa day.
Nails, lashes, a good hair blowout, pedicure, massage… yeah, I needed all of that.
And my next day off, I planned on doingjustthat. It had been so long since I could spoil myself or my brother. I didn’t know whether to thank God or the devil for that money, but either way, I was grateful.
A customer cleared their throat loudly, snapping me back to reality.
“Oh! I’m so sorry,” I said quickly, grabbing their groceries. “Long day.”
I rang them up fast and handed over their receipt with a smile. As soon as they walked off, I slipped right back into my thoughts.
I made the decision to leave both of my jobs.
Not immediately… I wasn’t stupid.
But I did give a two-week notice at each place. I didn’t know how that traveling job was going to play out. But I did know one thing: I couldn’t keep working myself into the ground. I could barely handle one job, and there I had been juggling two.
***
By the time I made it to the front door of our modest apartment, my hands felt like they were about to burst with the weight of everything I was carrying—grocery bags dangling from my wrists, a beautifully decorated birthday cake precariously balanced on my forearm, and two bright, helium-filled balloons bumping against the side of my head with every breath I took. I nudged the door open with my hip, and the rich, savory smell of food hit me before I even closed the door. It took me a second to register what I was smelling.
That wasn’t the all-too-familiar scent of takeout or cheap microwave dinners; it was something far more promising—real food... seasoned and simmering.
For a split second, I questioned whether I had mistakenly walked into the wrong apartment. But nope… that smell was definitely emanating from our kitchen. And standing in there wearing one of her silk robes and a wooden spoon in her hand, as she stirred something in a bubbling pot, was none other thanVanessa.