The Bodega Owner Treated Me Like an ATM for Ten Years. Today, I Ruined Her Daughter's Career. Chapter 2

When I got home, I pulled out my invisible hearing aid.

The sound of the pouring rain outside instantly vanished into total silence.

My mind drifted back ten years.

It was another night of torrential rain.

I had just graduated from college. My mother had passed away early, and my father, who had worked himself to the bone to raise me, was diagnosed with end-stage renal failure. He desperately needed money for dialysis.

I hunted for a job like a madwoman and finally landed an interview at a major tech corporation.

If I passed the interview, they offered a three-month salary advance as a signing bonus.

It was my father's only hope for survival.

But the night before the interview, I spiked a 104-degree fever.

My body burned like a furnace, and my consciousness was slipping.

I emptied every single pocket I owned, scraping together exactly $28.50.

It was every last cent our family had.

I stumbled blindly down to the corner store beneath our apartment—Brenda's store.

She had just opened the business back then.

"Ma'am, I need a box of fever reducers."

I dumped the handful of coins and crumpled bills onto the counter, my hands shaking violently.

Brenda counted the money, her eyebrows knitting together in disgust.

"This medicine is $29.00. You only have $28.50. It's not enough."

I looked at the price tag. It clearly read $28.50.

But the dizzying haze of the fever made me second-guess myself. I thought I had just read it wrong.

"Ma'am, I'm just fifty cents short... I have a massive interview tomorrow. Please, please just sell me the medicine."

"I promise I'll pay you back. I'll pay you back ten times over!"

Brenda shoved the money back at me, her eyes dead and cold.

"I don't care if you're a penny short. This is a business, not a charity."

"Broke? If you're poor, you don't get the luxury of getting sick. Stop acting like you deserve medicine."

Outside, the rain poured harder, thunder shaking the windows.

I thought of my dad, lying in a hospital bed, waiting for the money that would keep him breathing.

If I couldn't make it to that interview tomorrow, I wouldn't get the advance. And my dad would die.

Thud. I dropped to my knees on the dirty floor.

Throwing away every ounce of my dignity, I begged her.

"Ma'am, I'm begging you. My dad needs this money to live. I absolutely cannot collapse tonight..."

The linoleum was hard. My forehead bled from pressing it into the ground.

But Brenda didn't even flinch.

Just then, a wet, shivering stray dog wandered through the open door.

It stared hungrily at the rack of beef jerky.

Brenda chuckled. She pulled down a $2.00 stick of beef jerky, ripped off the plastic, and tossed it to the dog.

"Aww, you poor little thing. You must be starving! Eat up, eat up."

The dog swallowed it in two bites.

I knelt on the floor, staring at that piece of jerky, my tears mixing with the blood on my forehead.

I was worth less than a stray dog.

She was willing to throw away $2.00 on an animal, but she wouldn't forgive fifty cents to save a human life.

After feeding the dog, Brenda turned and saw me still kneeling there.

"Get out! Get the hell out! Don't bring your bad luck into my store! You're ruining the vibe!"

She grabbed a wet, filthy mop from by the door and swung it hard against my back.

Once. Twice.

Dirty mop water splashed all over my face.

"Get lost, you broke freak!"

I was already incredibly weak from the fever. Her shoving and beating sent me tumbling out the door.

I collapsed into the freezing puddles on the sidewalk. The fever completely severed my consciousness.

The rain was relentless that night.

I lay unconscious in the gutter until a passerby finally called an ambulance the next afternoon.

The prolonged, incredibly high fever caused irreversible nerve damage. I suffered permanent hearing loss in my left ear.

When I finally woke up in the hospital, a nurse handed me the phone.

Because we couldn't pay the medical bills, my father had voluntarily requested to stop his life support.

On that rainy night, he passed away.

I missed my interview.

I lost my father.

I lost my hearing.

All because of fifty imaginary cents.

In the dark of my bedroom, I picked up the framed photo of my father on my nightstand.

He was smiling so warmly in the picture.

I didn't cry.

My tears had entirely dried up on that rainy night ten years ago.

Those fifty cents bought my father's life, and they bought the very last shred of mercy in my soul.