Any sensible version of you should have quit.
Your roommate certainly thinks so. Marcus, who studies engineering and treats life like a series of solvable defects, listens to the whole story one night while eating cereal from the pot because all the bowls are dirty.
“She’s using you,” he says.
“She can barely stand.”
“That has never stopped anybody from being manipulative.”
You know he is not entirely wrong, which is what makes it sting. Poverty turns everyone into amateur forensic accountants of other people’s motives. Every unpaid favor has a cost. Every soft spot becomes a leak.
“I know,” you say.
“Then why do you keep going?”
You think about the empty refrigerator. The way her hands shake. The strange dignity with which she says thank you without ever sounding needy. The silence of that house, which no longer feels eerie so much as painfully unnecessary.
“I don’t know,” you lie.
