"Fine. You want to throw things away? Then you can forget about dinner money next week. Consider it your reimbursement to me."
The line went dead. Nothing left but the flat, mechanical hum of the dial tone.
I sat there. Didn't move.
Outside, the dorm building lights were still on. The girl next door was laughing into her phone. Her voice drifted through the wall, faint but clear enough to make out.
Mom, stop worrying. I'm fine. Everything's great.
I looked down at the post Lily had just made on social media.
"I'd sell everything I own to give my kids the best."
Then I checked my balance. Sixteen dollars and thirty cents. Scraped together from recycling cans and bottles last week.
To the rest of the world, I was the lucky daughter who got five thousand dollars a month in allowance, lovingly raised by a generous mother.
Only I knew the truth. That five thousand wasn't money. It was a chain around my neck. Every time I pulled against it, it tore skin.
Buy a pen? File a report. Use up a refill? Log it. Even a fifty-cent replacement cartridge had to be kept after it ran dry, flattened out, and photographed for her inspection.
One second too slow, and I'd get screamed at.
One cartridge short, and next week's dinner money was gone.
I stared at the ceiling and slowly started to laugh.
My mother liked to say my face was the biggest regret of her life. Because I looked too much like my father. The man who gambled away every cent she had and skipped town with another woman.
This life of "five thousand dollars a month in spending money." When was it ever going to end?
Third period that afternoon was study hall. I had my head down, working through calculus problems.
The homeroom teacher pushed open the classroom door and walked in. She scanned the room once, and her eyes landed directly on me.
"Queenie, you still owe fifty dollars for the practice exam packet. This is the third reminder. Can I get a straight answer today?"
Forty students. Forty pairs of eyes. Every single one swiveled toward me.
The blood rushed to my face all at once, but I forced myself to nod.
"I'll figure it out today, ma'am."
"Good. Have it on my desk before the end of class."
She turned and left. The stares didn't.
Someone in the front row muttered under their breath. "She can't come up with fifty bucks?"
Another voice followed, quick and sharp. "Doesn't her mom give her five grand a month? Who knows where it all goes."
I dropped my head and fixed my eyes on the half-finished integral on my scratch paper. My ears burned so hot they felt like they might catch fire.
The second the bell rang, I ran to the far end of the hallway and dialed.
No answer.
I sent a message. Mom, the teacher's asking for the materials fee. Fifty dollars. Can you transfer it first?
Sent. No reply.
I stood in the hallway, watching the sun beat down on the track field through the window, my palms slowly going damp with sweat.
Nearly half an hour passed before the phone finally rang.
"What is it?" Her voice was lazy, like she'd just woken up from a nap.
"The fifty-dollar materials fee. The teacher keeps asking. Can you just send it?"
"Fifty dollars?" Her pitch shot up instantly.
"Queenie, I give you five thousand a month and that's not enough? Now you're coming to me with your hand out for more?"
I swallowed the anger down. "It's a school fee. Collected from everyone. It's not part of the living allowance."
"Collected from everyone, so it has to be paid?" She cut me off. "How do I know your teacher isn't just skimming money on the side? I'm telling you right now, without an official receipt stamped by the school, you're not getting a cent. Go ask your teacher for one. When I see it, I'll transfer the money."
I froze for a moment. My voice dropped to almost nothing. "Mom. It's fifty dollars. Not five hundred."
"Doesn't matter how much it is. Rules are rules."
The line went dead. Clean. Final.
I stood in the hallway, phone in my hand, and for a long moment I had no idea where to go.
