Romero
My phone buzzes beside me.
I don't move.
It's been two hours and I'm still laying on my floor.
I really want to get up.
I have to do homework and make dinner today.
But I can't get up.
It feels like a weight is on my back.
For the past two hours, my time has been spent laying on the wood floors and staring at the dust under my bed.
My mind doesn't have much in it at the moment.
Just watching the dust bunnies hop by.
Karine and tia Vitoria met with the lawyer the other day.
They didn't tell me how much it cost.
Found that one out myself from the new papers that have found their way onto the kitchen counter.
350 dollars per hour. Plus the additional fees. Mediator fees. Opening case fees. Custody evaluation fees. Papers that need to be filed with the court. Consultation fee. Flat fee. I had to stop reading after that.
The flat fee alone cost 6,000 dollars.
Why are you doing this mãe.
I'm scared if I look away from the dust bunnies that I'll be back to reality.
I just don't have the energy to move.
I've been working every day this week. Either at the coffee or car shop. Then in my breaks I do as much homework and studying as I can. Then I come home, take care of Mariana so avó and Karine can go to work. Then I make the five of us dinner. Then I help avó and tia Vitoria clean up. Then I finish up any homework I didn't complete.
It feels like I'm constantly running.
Except as the days pass it feels less like running and more like trudging across a battle field, struggling to hold my banner up.
In school I stare at the board and I write notes down, but nothing is going in.
When people talk to me it's like the words travel right through me and not to me.
Like I'm living in autopilot while my mind is in a getaway car.
Money. Money. More money. Study. Work. Money.
It's all I think about it.
My phone buzzes again and I groan.
I turn my head and glance to the screen, my cheek smushed against the floor as I lay on my stomach.
My interest lifts when I see Carmen's name.
The phone is a little to far, so I can't see what she said. I really want to read it, but I can't reach over and grab the phone.
YOU ARE READING
Rose Bridges
RomanceRomero, struggling to push through the day to day life of his world: court bills, money, family, money, the past, money, his own mind, and more money. Carmen has been pushing to become a lawyer her whole life; wanting to be taken seriously in a fiel...
