The market square buzzed with the chaos of survival. Vendors shouted over one another. Lita moved through it all like a ghost, her eyes scanning for opportunities that wouldn't land her in trouble.
At sixteen, she'd learned to make herself small. Invisible. It was safer that way.
"Fresh bread! Get your fresh bread!" a baker called out, his voice booming across the square.
Lita's stomach clenched. Six months. It had been six months since the accident, and the driver hadn't even stopped after hitting her father. Her mother had taken to bed that same week, grief and illness intertwining until she could barely lift her head. The responsibility had fallen to Lita: the rent, the food, the medicine they couldn't afford.
She was sixteen, and she was drowning.
Lita approached a fruit vendor, counting the coins in her pocket by touch alone. Three copper pieces. Enough for a loaf of day-old bread, maybe some bruised apples. Not enough. Never enough.
"How much for the carrots?" she asked, her voice barely audible.
"Two copper for the bunch," the vendor replied without looking at her.
She nodded and moved on, her cart empty behind her. She'd need to fill it with something, anything she could resell or trade. That's what she did now: bought low, sold lower, and somehow scraped together enough to keep them alive another day.
The sack of rice was too heavy. Lita knew it the moment she tried to lift it onto her cart, but she'd already paid for it and spent nearly everything she had on it. Her arms shook with the effort, her feet sliding on the cobblestones.
"Here." A hand reached past her, taking the weight effortlessly.
Lita looked up, startled, into a face she'd seen before. Damian. A few years older than her, maybe eighteen or nineteen, with callused hands and an easy smile that seemed out of place in their gray, hungry world. She'd seen him around the market, always working, always moving, but they had never spoken.
You shouldn't be carrying this alone, he said, settling the sack into her cart with a gentleness that surprised her.
I manage, Lita said quickly, defensive. She didn't need pity.
I'm sure you do. His smile didn't waver. But that doesn't mean you have to.
Something in his voice made her pause. No pity. Understanding.
Thank you, she managed.
Where are you headed? He asked, falling into step beside her as she began to pull the cart.
Home. West side.
That's a long walk with this load. He glanced at the cart, then back at her. "Mind if I help? I'm going that way anyway."
She wanted to refuse. Pride demanded it. But her arms already ached, and home was indeed far, and something about him felt… safe.
Okay, she whispered.
They walked in comfortable silence for a while, Damian pushing the cart with an ease that made Lita feel both grateful and inadequate. The market sounds faded behind them, replaced by the quieter desperation of the tenement district.
"I'm Damian," he said eventually.
Lita.
Lita, he repeated, as if testing the name. I've seen you at the market. You're there every day.
Have to be. lita replied
He nodded, understanding in that single gesture more than most people understood in conversation. "Me too. Been working since I was twelve. Parents died when I was young."
Lita glanced at him, seeing him differently now. A fellow survivor.
I'm sorry, she said.
Don't be. I'm still here, aren't I? He grinned. We're tougher than we look, people like us.
People like us. The words settled over her like a blanket, uncomfortable but warm.
They reached a broken streetlight on the edge of her neighborhood, its glass shattered. Damian stopped, reaching into his bag and pulling out a small bundle wrapped in cloth.
Wait, he said. I grabbed an extra loaf this morning. Here.
He unwrapped it, fresh bread, still soft, the kind Lita couldn't afford.
"I can't," she started.
You can. He broke it in half, offering her one piece. "And you will."
The bread was warm in her hands. Lita couldn't remember the last time she had eaten something that wasn't stale or half-rotted. She took a small bite, and her eyes closed involuntarily at the taste.
When she opened them, Damian was watching her with something gentle in his expression.
"I'll never let you starve," he said quietly, firmly, like he was making a promise to the universe itself. "I mean that, Lita. I don't know what your story is yet, but I know that look. I've worn it myself. And I'm telling you, you're not alone anymore."
Tears pricked at her eyes, unexpected and unwelcome. She'd cried all her tears six months ago. There weren't supposed to be any left.
"Why?" she asked, her voice breaking. "You don't even know me."
Because someone should've said it to me when I was your age, he replied simply. And because some of us have to look out for each other, or nobody will.
They finished the bread together under that broken streetlight, and for the first time in six months, Lita's hunger felt like something that might, someday, end.
That night, after Damian had helped her carry the rice up three flights of stairs and disappeared into the evening with a promise to see her tomorrow, Lita sat in the darkness of her room. Her mother's labored breathing echoed from the next room, a constant reminder of everything weighing on her shoulders.
She thought about Damian's words. His promise. The bread they shared.
And she made a vow of her own, whispered into the darkness like a prayer, like a declaration of war against the circumstances that had tried to break her.
"I'll never live like this forever."
Not a wish. Not a hope. A promise.
She didn't know how yet. I didn't know when. But somewhere in the six months of grinding poverty and endless struggle, something hard and bright had formed in her chest. Determination. Defiance. The absolute certainty that this hunger, this desperation, this half-life was not her destiny.
She would find a way out. She would save her mother. She would survive.
And she wouldn't do it alone.
Outside her window, the city sprawled out in all its broken, beautiful complexity. Somewhere out there, Damian was probably in a room just like this, making similar promises to himself.
Somewhere out there, the future was waiting.
Lita closed her eyes and let herself believe it.
Tomorrow, she will go back to the market. Tomorrow, she will keep fighting. And tomorrow, she wouldn't be doing it alone.
The thought was enough to let her sleep.