I didn’t scream. I didn’t laugh. I just sat there listening to the refrigerator hum, feeling my heartbeat slow. It wasn’t a headline jackpot. It wasn’t fireworks. But it was enough. Enough to breathe. Enough to think. Enough to stop being desperate.
I didn’t tell anyone. Instead, I called a lawyer. Not the kind with a billboard and a jingle. The kind who works in a glass building downtown and charges by the hour because his time is expensive for a reason. When I rolled into his office on crutches, I looked like someone who’d taken a wrong turn in life. He didn’t comment. He just listened.
“I want two things,” I said when I finished. “I want my assets protected. And I want to understand my parents’ finances better than they do.”
He studied me for a long moment. “That second part,” he said carefully, “changes things.”
“I know,” I replied. “That’s why I’m here.”
As I left his office, my phone buzzed. A text from my brother. How’s the leg? I typed back: Getting there. Thanks again. He replied with a thumbs-up emoji and a joke about borrowing my crutches if his knee went out.
He had no idea what I was about to do. And I wasn’t ready to tell him.
The paperwork took longer than the pain. That surprised me. I’d expected the physical recovery to be the hard part, the slow, grinding work of learning to trust my leg again. Instead, it was the waiting rooms, the signatures, the calls that never got returned. The world of forms and fine print was colder than any operating table.
The loan payments began exactly when they said they would. No grace period, no understanding. Just automated withdrawals that didn’t care whether I was still on crutches or sleeping on my couch because the bed was too far from the bathroom. Every month, half my income disappeared before I could touch it.
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