So the two months passed.
And they paid all of it.
$30,000 back in my account.
I found out later through my aunt.
She’s always been the one who tells me things.
They sold the boat.
My dad’s boat.
He’d had that thing for like 12 years.
Took care of it like it was a second child.
They took the rest from their retirement savings.
The account they’d been building up for years.
I won’t pretend that felt good to hear.
It didn’t feel good exactly.
But also, I kept thinking:
That was my house money.
That was years of me working and saving and not going on vacations and eating lunch at my desk instead of going out.
So, yeah.
Anyway, about a month after that, I closed on the house.
The little one with the yard.
The one I’d had my eye on.
I remember standing in the empty living room the first day with the keys in my hand.
Just standing there.
Didn’t take any photos or anything.
Just stood there for a while.
I only told a few people the address.
Close friends.
Not family.
My parents don’t know where I live now.
Neither does Chris.
And I want to keep it that way.
Oh, and Chris.
Right.
I heard about this maybe a few weeks after I moved in.
Apparently, he got into debt again.
New debt.
New people.
Same story.
And this time, he stole from his girlfriend’s mother.
Took her bank card.
Withdrew $10,000.
I mean, what do you even say to that?
My parents tried to fix it the same way they always try to fix everything.
They went to the woman and said:
“Look, we’ll pay it back. Please drop the charges.”