The night air bit at Wish's skin. She pressed her back against the diner's brick wall, tucking herself into the shadows where no one could see.
Her fingers trembled as she pulled out her phone. The banking app took forever to load—or maybe it was just her holding her breath.
There it was: Deposit: $1,280.00.
A month of her life reduced to four digits. Thirty-one days of scraping congealed food off plates, wiping down sticky tables, smiling until her jaw ached.
Her breath shuddered out. Twelve-eighty. She closed her eyes, but the numbers burned behind her lids anyway.
Rent was eleven hundred even for her studio—if you could call a converted closet with a constantly dripping faucet a studio.
The electricity bill was overdue again. One-fifty, at least. That left thirty dollars. Thirty dollars to live on until the next paycheck.
She'd have to dig into the coffee can again. The one she kept hidden in the back of her cabinet, filled with crumpled bills and loose change from tips.
The one that was supposed to be for emergencies but had been emptied and refilled so many times the metal bottom was starting to rust.
She pushed off the wall, stuffing her phone back into her pocket. The tiny spark of hope that had flickered at seeing the deposit sputtered and died.
"At least I'll pay rent," she whispered to the empty street. The city swallowed her words without acknowledgment.
Her phone shattered the moment. Not a buzz this time—a ring. Loud and insistent. An unknown number glowed on the screen.
Her stomach dropped. Unknown numbers never meant good news. Never. She face-palmed so hard her head rung.
"Hello?"
"You Wish Miller?" A man's voice, rough with irritation and backed by the cacophony of a crowded bar.
"Get down to The Last Fall on Sycamore Street. Your folks are shit-faced, they've broken a table and more, and they're about a minute from getting arrested unless you settle their tab and the damages. Digitally. I don't take checks."
The ground tilted beneath her feet. The phone felt like it was burning through her palm.
"I'm on my way."
The words came automatically. Like they always did.
Her car—the dented, primer-grey hatchback she leased weekly from Zoomer Deliveries—coughed and sputtered before finally starting.
She gripped the steering wheel so hard her knuckles went white. Ten minutes.
She made it in ten minutes, though she barely remembered the drive.
The Last Fall was chaos incarnate. She heard it before she even opened the door—her mother's shrill voice cutting through the din, the crash of breaking glass, her father's roar.
She pushed through the door.
Robert stood in the center of the bar, his face purple-red, veins bulging at his temples. He clutched a splintered chair leg like a weapon. "We already paid, you thieving bastard!"
Linda was at the bar, both hands sweeping across the surface. Beer bottles flew, shattering against the floor in spectacular explosions of glass and foam. "You want more money? HERE! Have some more!"
"Dad! Mom! Stop it!"
Robert wheeled around. The stench of whiskey rolled off him in waves, mixed with something darker—rage, years old and fermenting. "You!"
He pointed the chair leg at her. "You little bitch, coming to spy on us? To judge? We should've left you at the hospital! No—we should have thrown you!"
The bartender stepped between them. He was a big man, all muscle and scar tissue, with a shaved head and a scowl that looked permanent.
He didn't waste time on threats. He just held up his phone, a payment app already open on the screen.
"You the daughter?" He didn't wait for an answer. "The alcohol tab is three hundred. They tried to pay with a declined card. The table, the mirror, the lights, my patience…"
He jabbed a thick finger at the carnage around them. "Call it nine hundred even. You scan and pay, right now, or they go in the squad car that's already parked outside."
Nine hundred dollars.
The number hit her like a physical blow. Nine hundred dollars was rent. It was electricity. It was food. It was everything.
Her throat closed. She couldn't speak. Couldn't breathe. Hot tears pressed behind her eyes, but she blinked them back. Her hands shook as she pulled out her phone again.
The $1,280 glared at her from the screen. Mocking her.
She tapped through the screens mechanically. Initiated the transfer. $900. She scanned his code. The app asked for her fingerprint to confirm.
She pressed her thumb down.
Transaction Approved. Current Balance: $380.
Her entire month. Gone. Just like that.
Behind her, Linda laughed—a sharp, ugly sound like breaking glass. "See? Told you she'd pay. That's all she's good for."
The words should have hurt. They used to hurt. Now they just slid in easy, fitting into all the old wounds they'd carved years ago.
Wish turned and walked toward the door. Behind her, she heard them stumbling, following.
"Get in the car," she said. Her voice sounded far away, like it belonged to someone else.
"Don't you tell me what to do!" Robert lurched forward, snatching the keys from her hand. His grip was bruising. "I'm your father! I drive!"
"Please." The word came out broken. "It's not my car. It's from the delivery gig. If anything happens, I lose it. I'll lose everything. Please, Dad."
Linda stumbled against the fender, catching herself with both hands. "Let the man drive! Show some respect!"
She pointed an unsteady finger at Wish's face. "You should be grateful we kept a roof over your head! You think your community college degree makes you better than us?"
Community college. Wish had gotten into a real university once. A full scholarship. She'd forged their signatures on the forms because they'd refused to sign. Said she was getting above herself.
She'd had to turn it down anyway because someone had to pay their rent. Someone had to make sure they didn't get evicted. Someone had to be the adult.
She'd been thirteen when she started running errands for neighbors. Sixteen she'd been paying the rent on their miserable apartment ever since, juggling classes, the diner, and delivery shifts which she started by using a borrowed bike.
Robert shoved her. Hard. Not the kind of push that steadies someone—the kind that sends a message. Wish stumbled back, her heel catching on the curb. She went down hard on the concrete.
The impact jarred through her bones, but she barely felt it. She'd been shoved before.
At seven, she'd asked for help with her homework and gotten pushed into a doorframe for her trouble.
At ten, she'd asked if they could have dinner together like other families and gotten knocked into the kitchen table.
She pushed herself up slowly. Something inside her had shifted. Cracked. Maybe broken entirely.
Fine, she thought. The word was calm. Dead calm. Maybe we'll just get hit. Maybe it will finally be over.
She got in the back seat. Didn't put on her seatbelt. Didn't say another word.
Linda flopped into the passenger seat, immediately rolling down her window. "Woo! Freedom!" She hurled a half-empty bottle of vodka out into the night. It shattered somewhere in the dark.
Robert gunned the engine. The tires squealed. The city became a blur of hostile lights and dark spaces.
"Dad, slow down."
"SHUT UP!" He swerved across lanes, cutting off a sedan that blared its horn. "Ungrateful little parasite! You sucked us dry from the day you were born!"
This is all there has ever been. The realization settled over her like a shroud. No bedtime stories.
No gentle hands. No one to hold her when she cried. Just slamming doors and raised voices.
Pinches when she as much as sneezed wrong. Slaps when she asked for candy. A childhood of fear. An adulthood of debt.
She'd sworn she'd never be like them. But they were a black hole, and she was finally out of strength to fight the gravity.
Linda twisted in her seat, her eyes glittering with drunk, venomous spite. "Shut up. If you die, you die. At least you'll stop complaining."
The words hung in the air. The last words she heard from her mother.
Then the world exploded into white light.
The cargo truck's headlights filled everything. A sun at midnight. No time to scream. No time to think.
The universe became sound—metal shrieking, glass shattering, a thunderclap of impact that shook the atoms in the air. The car spun, weightless for a moment. Then something hot and sharp slammed into her chest.
And then—silence.
Wish couldn't move. She tried, but her body wouldn't respond. Only her eyes worked, rolling in her skull to take in the carnage.
In the front seat, her parents were crumpled like discarded paper. Finally, blessedly quiet.
She didn't cry for the life leaving her body. She cried for the life she never had.
Warm wetness spread across her chest. Blood, probably. A lot of it.
She had never been held. Not really. Never been whispered to, told she was wanted, told she mattered. She'd never danced without counting the cost of the shoes she'd need.
Never slept without a mental list of bills scrolling behind her eyes. She'd worked so hard, for so long, and it had all been for this: a broken girl in a borrowed car on a street that led nowhere.
The pain of her lonely existence was an ocean. This crash was just a cupful more.
I was never loved. Never even hugged. Not once.
A single tear carved a path through the dust and blood on her cheek.
I wish someone had wanted me. Was I really that hard to care about?
The cold was inside her now, deep and final and absolute.
Just one person… just once.
Wish didn't die screaming. She died weeping silently, a nineteen-year-old who had been parent, provider, and prisoner for far too long. Her final wish wasn't for heaven or salvation.
It was for a single, tender moment she had only ever seen from a distance—someone's hand in hers, someone's arms around her, someone's voice saying her name like it meant something.
Just once.