Flatten it.
He said it with a smile. A cruel, tight little smile that told me he enjoyed it. He enjoyed crushing a fifty-year-old widow’s life because he could. He enjoyed the power. He knew I had nowhere to go. He knew I had sold my wedding ring, Robert’s tools, even the good silver my grandmother left me, just to keep the lights on for six more months.
“Please,” I whispered, shame burning my cheeks. “Just one more extension. The winter season is starting. The skiers will be coming through. I can make the payments.”
“Get out, Sarah,” he said, turning back to his screen. “Don’t make me call security.”
The betrayal tasted like ash in my mouth. Thirty years of trust. Thirty years of being good people, of doing the right thing, erased by a man who saw numbers where I saw lives.
Now, standing in the empty diner, I looked down at my hands. They were weathered, dry, the knuckles swollen from years of scrubbing griddles and pouring coffee. I opened the register. The drawer slid out with a familiar ding.
Forty-seven dollars.
That was it. That was my life’s savings.
The wind howled again, shaking the building so hard the neon sign outside—OPEN 24 HOURS—flickered and buzzed. It was a lie now. We weren’t open forever. We had one week.
I walked over to booth four. Robert’s booth. The red vinyl was cracked, taped over with silver duct tape in the corner. I ran my fingers over the table. I could almost see him there, his big shoulders taking up the whole space, his eyes crinkling as he laughed.
