I blinked.
“You don’t?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I want you to be free.”
He pointed at the notebook.
“But freedom costs something,” he said. “And right now you’re paying for comfort instead.”
I sat there in the quiet kitchen, the air smelling like toast and pine cleaner, and I felt something in me shift.
Not into motivation.
Into grief.
Grief for how hard it was to live now.
Grief for how hard it was back then.
Grief for how both generations were right and wrong in different ways, and how the only thing we seemed to do with that truth was turn it into a fight online.
I looked at the list again.
“People are going to argue about this,” I said quietly.
Frank snorted.
“People argue about everything,” he said. “They argue because it’s easier than changing.”
I stared at the page.
Then I said something that made my throat tighten.
“I don’t want to be broke forever,” I whispered.
Frank didn’t laugh. He didn’t roll his eyes.
He put his hand on the table near mine—not touching, just close enough.
“You won’t be,” he said. “Not if you stop pretending you’re rich.”
That line was so sharp it could’ve cut glass.
And it made me think of something I’d never admitted to myself.
How much of my spending wasn’t about comfort.
It was about image.
About not looking like I was failing.
About keeping up with people who looked like they were doing fine while secretly drowning too.
About buying the illusion of adulthood.
I swallowed hard.
Upstairs, the house creaked again, settling into the night.
Frank stood up and turned the TV back on.
The news anchor was talking about prices, about tension, about a country arguing with itself.
Frank watched for a moment, then muttered, “They keep people mad so they don’t look up.”
I glanced at him.
That sentence could’ve started a whole political fight on its own.
But Frank didn’t say it like a partisan.
He said it like a man who’d lived long enough to see the same trick in different outfits.
I sat back on the couch beside him.
No scrolling. No ordering. No distraction.
Just the hum of the TV and the weight of reality.
After a while, Frank spoke without looking at me.
“You know what’s going to happen next?” he asked.
“What?” I said.
He finally turned toward me, eyes steady.
“You’re going to have a bad day,” he said. “And you’re going to want to buy relief.”
My chest tightened.
“And you’re going to tell yourself you deserve it,” he continued.
I didn’t answer.