Chapter 8
The Past That Hurts
The air still carried the ghost of smoke, a phantom scent clinging to the worn fabric of the single blazer I’d managed to keep clean. It wasn’t the smell of a hearth fire or a backyard barbecue; it was the acrid, chemical stink of burning refuse, the desperate odor of survival on the coldest edges of the city.
I sat on the edge of the mattress—a hand-me-down, lumpy thing that smelled faintly of mildew despite airing it out weekly in the small, dusty patch of sunlight that managed to penetrate the single window of Apartment $5. The number itself felt like both a cruel joke and a divine miracle. Five dollars. The rent hadn't actually been five dollars, of course; that was the myth I’d built around the space in my head during the leanest days. The actual rent was seventy-five dollars more than I earned washing dishes at the diner, but the sheer act of having a door that locked, a wall that didn't shift in the wind, felt like the ultimate wealth.
This was Chapter Eight, "The Past That Hurts," but the past wasn't contained in a single chapter; it was the foundation beneath the thin carpet, the chill that sometimes rose through the floorboards even in July. It was the constant pressure behind my eyes.
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