Desperate for Approval novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Knee Guards

That night I sent Dad one text, and it was the only one I sent him all semester.

[Grandma says she signed something for me when I was four. What money did she mean?]

His answer came in under a minute.

[Nothing for you to worry about. It's money for your upkeep, and I'm the one who carries it. Apologize and we'll talk.]

I read it three times.

Then I turned the phone off and went to shelve books until midnight.

By December I had a routine, and it was ugly and it worked.

Classes until three.

Tutoring two middle schoolers in a library study room for twenty dollars an hour, with a pencil behind my ear.

Shelving from eight until midnight, Tuesday to Saturday.

The loan covered my room, and the money from the library covered my food and bus fare.

I paid my roommate back her sixty dollars in cash, and she bought me a coffee with it and wouldn't let me argue.

Dad sent a message on the first of every month.

[Reply if you have run out of money. Don't be proud and don't put on a front.]

I did not reply.

On the second Friday of December, the school sent my first refund, three hundred and ten dollars left over from the loan.

I walked straight to the pharmacy on Main Street.

Grandma's knees had been bad since I was little.

She wore two old elastic braces held up with safety pins, and when it rained she took the stairs one at a time with both hands on the rail.

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