Page 8 of Micah

Longer nights.

Bartending.

Cooking.

Cleaning.

Ordering inventory.

Balancing books.

Smiling when I don’t mean it until my cheeks hurt.

Then getting up the next morning to do it all over again.

I told myself it would be worth it.

One day.

When the loans were paid.

When the business finally took off.

When Patrick isn't carrying the burden of our parents debts alone anymore.

Because I still owed him.

Didn't I?

He'd sacrificed so much for me.

The funny thing about working all the time is you don't leave much room for anything else.

Friends.

Dating.

Dreaming.

You look up one day and realize you're thirty-three years old and the closest thing you've had to a vacation is eating lunch outside instead of in the stockroom.

Still...

I never stopped hoping.

Maybe that's my fatal flaw.

Hope.

Hope that tomorrow would be easier.

Hope that next month we'd finally get ahead.

Hope that all the sacrifices meant something.

Hope that someday I'd find a place where I belonged.

Not because somebody needed me.