Chapter 10
The email arrived during my planning period, while twenty-six empty desks faced me in neat rows.
The studio was available. If I signed the lease and paid the deposit by five that afternoon, I could pick up the keys the following Friday.
I read the amount twice. The deposit would take most of what I had saved, and the first month’s rent would leave almost nothing between me and my next paycheck. The apartment was over a laundromat, six miles from school, with one narrow closet and a stove old enough to have rust around the burners. I had seen it the day before and measured the main room with my phone because I didn’t own a tape measure.
It wasn’t beautiful. It was possible.
I opened my budget on my laptop and removed everything that wasn’t necessary. Restaurant meals went first. Then the streaming subscription. I lowered the grocery amount and added a line for the laundromat downstairs.
Even then, the numbers were close.
Daniel stopped at my classroom door with a stack of quizzes tucked under one arm. “You all right?”
“I have until five to decide.”
He stayed in the doorway. He didn’t ask what the decision was or come closer to look at my screen.
After a moment, I turned the laptop toward him. “The apartment.”
His eyes moved over the figures. “Do you want my opinion, or do you want me to sit here while you think?”
The question loosened something in my chest.
“Sit here.”
He took the student chair beside my desk. He graded two quizzes without speaking while I read the lease one more time. At 3:41, I typed my name, transferred the deposit from my savings, and clicked accept.
The confirmation page looked almost disappointingly plain.
Daniel glanced up when I exhaled. “Done?”
“Done.”
He smiled, small and careful. “Then you have somewhere to go.”
At the rental office, the property manager printed my receipt and circled the key pickup time. The office smelled like dust and lemon cleaner. A window air conditioner rattled hard enough to shake the plastic blinds.
“No truck can block the rear lot,” she said. “But you can use the loading space for thirty minutes.”
“I don’t have a truck yet.”
Daniel, standing near the door, said, “I can borrow one from another teacher. If you want.”
He waited until I nodded before adding the date to his phone.
When I got home, Dad had placed a fresh copy of the household spreadsheet on the coffee table. Mom sat beside him with her hands folded. Martha stood near the basement doorway, one palm resting under her stomach.
Dad tapped a date printed at the top. It was the same Friday written on my rental receipt.
“Martha’s things come down that morning,” he said. “Your new rent starts that day too.”
I set my school bag beside the couch. “Why that day?”
“Because that’s when the household changes.”
Martha’s gaze dropped to the spreadsheet. “You told me Abby had until the end of the month.”
Dad adjusted his glasses. “Plans changed.”
“They changed for who?” I asked.
Mom’s mouth tightened. “Please don’t start.”
I took the folded receipt from my cardigan pocket. My fingers felt cold against the paper. “I signed a lease today. I’m moving out Friday.”
No one spoke at first. From the basement came the faint scrape of a cardboard box settling against another.
Dad looked at the receipt but didn’t reach for it. “You paid a deposit without discussing it with us?”
“It was my money.”
“We’re your family.”
“And you gave me a deadline.”
Mom stood so quickly that her knee struck the coffee table. The spreadsheet shifted half an inch. “Do you understand what this looks like? Martha moves in pregnant, and you walk out the same day. People are going to think this family is unstable.”
There it was—not that I would be struggling, or that Martha needed help, but what people would think.
“I didn’t choose the date,” I said.
“You can change it,” Dad replied. His voice softened, which made the demand worse. “Call them tomorrow. Lose the deposit if you have to. Stay through the transition, and we’ll revisit everything later.”
Martha looked at him. “Later when?”
He didn’t answer.
I picked up my school bag. “I’m not losing the deposit.”
In my room, I texted Daniel that Friday was confirmed and asked whether the truck was still possible.
His reply came a minute later. Yes. Tell me what time and what you want help carrying.
Before I could answer, Martha appeared in my doorway holding her coffee mug with both hands.
“Mom’s already saying you’re leaving because I came back,” she said.
“I know.”
“I’ll tell her that isn’t what happened.”
I looked past her toward the hallway, where Dad’s low voice carried from the living room.
“She may not want the truth,” I said.
May you like
Martha’s expression shifted, not quite surprise and not quite resignation. “Then I’ll say it where she can hear me anyway.”
I began a list of what would fit in borrowed boxes. Behind me, my phone lit with the rental confirmation, while downstairs my parents worked out how to explain my departure as betrayal instead of consequence.
