The Lie I Tell Every Morning.
"Sleep well?" she asks. "Like a baby," I say. The truth? I stared at the ceiling until 4 AM, doing math that never adds up. Rent. Pills. The silence of a phone that won't ring with shifts I desperately need. She's 74. She thinks I'm just a student. She doesn't know I wash dishes until my hands crack, that I walked home in rain last night because the bus costs too much, that I hide the envelopes with red stamps. She gave up her country for my future. Now I lie awake wondering how long I can keep hers from collapsing. If someone once showed up for you when you had nothing leftโ Be that someone now.