"More coffee." The trucker in booth three shoved his ceramic mug toward the edge of the table, not bothering to look up from his phone.
"Right away." I grabbed the glass pot from the burner, pouring the steaming liquid until it reached the rim.
The diner smelled of old grease and burnt toast.
"You look tired, kid," the cook, Sal, called from the grill. "Go home."
"Can't. Rent is due soon."
"Keep the change." The trucker tossed two crumpled dollar bills onto the sticky formica.
"Thanks." I shoved the tips into my apron pocket, ignoring the dull ache in my lower back.
Shift change hit at three. I traded my diner uniform for jeans and rushed straight to the public library.
"You are not even trying to solve for X, Tyler," I told the sullen teenager slouching across the study table.
"Why does it matter?" Tyler muttered, spinning his mechanical pencil. "I am going to work for my dad's landscaping company anyway. Math is useless."
"It matters because I get paid twenty dollars an hour to make sure you pass algebra." I tapped the textbook. "Focus on the equation."
Tyler rolled his eyes but picked up the pencil. "My mom says you work at the diner too."
"I do."
"Why? Doesn't your dad own that big insurance firm?"
"Just do the math problem, Tyler."
By eleven at night, I was pushing a heavy mop across the linoleum floors of a downtown dental clinic. The harsh fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting long shadows down the empty corridors. My arms burned, my feet throbbed, but I kept moving. Minimum wage demanded constant motion.
Every Sunday night, the routine culminated in my bedroom.
"Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen." I stacked the wrinkled twenty-dollar bills on my worn bedspread.
The cardboard shoebox sat open beside my knee. Four hundred and twelve dollars.
"Elena, keep it down," Margaret yelled through the thin drywall. "Brandon is trying to sleep."
"I am not making any noise," I called back.
"Your pacing is loud. Stop walking around."
I bit my tongue, shoved the cash back into the shoebox, and slid it under my mattress.
I lay back on the thin bedspread and stared at the water stain on the ceiling. My back ached from the mop. My feet throbbed inside my socks. My fingers still smelled like coffee and bleach.
Four hundred and twelve dollars. Two years of double shifts and skipped lunches and sleep I never got. It was not enough for a deposit, but it was mine. Every wrinkled bill had my exhaustion folded into it.
I reached under my collar and found the thin gold chain. I pulled the locket free and pressed the cool metal against my lips.
My grandmother had given it to me the winter before she passed. She told me it was the only thing in the family worth keeping. She told me to hold on to it no matter what anyone said.
"I am almost there, Nana," I whispered into the dark.
I did not know it yet, but the shoebox under my mattress was already as good as empty. The people in the next room had already decided whose dreams this house would pay for.
It would not be mine.
