“I trust paper,” he said. “Paper doesn’t beg you at midnight.”
I sat down, and he put a plate in front of me: two eggs, toast, and a line of ketchup like he’d measured it.
“Eat,” he said.
I ate.
And it was good.
Not in the “I paid extra for this” way.
In the “this will actually keep me alive” way.
Silence stretched.
Finally, I said what I’d been thinking since last night.
“Frank,” I said, “I’m not… stupid.”
He grunted.
“I know I spend too much,” I continued. “But you act like… if I just stop buying small things, I’ll magically be okay.”
That got his attention.
He turned off the stove and sat across from me with his own plate.
He didn’t correct me.
He didn’t lecture.
He waited.
So I kept going.
“I make fifty-five a year,” I said. “That’s not nothing. I’m not broke because I’m buying fries. I’m broke because everything costs too much. Rent is insane. Food is insane. I pay for health insurance I can barely use. I—”
I stopped myself.
Because if I said “student loans” out loud, I knew what he’d say, and I wasn’t ready for it.
Frank picked up his fork slowly.
“You’re right,” he said.
That word hit me harder than any speech.
“You’re right,” he repeated. “Everything costs too much.”
I blinked.
I’d been ready for a fight. I’d been ready for his favorite line—times were hard, we were harder.
Instead, he said, “You want to know what I don’t like?”
“What?” I asked.
He took a bite of egg, chewed, swallowed.
“I don’t like how you talk like you’re helpless,” he said.
My jaw tightened.
“I’m not helpless,” I said.
“You act like it,” he said. “You act like the world is a wave and you’re just a piece of driftwood.”
“I’m tired,” I snapped. “I’m exhausted.”
He nodded once, like he understood that part more than I thought.
“Then stop buying things that pretend to fix tired,” he said.
There it was. The Frank philosophy.
I pushed my plate away, suddenly not hungry again.
“You know what I hate?” I said.
Frank raised his eyebrows.
“I hate that you’re right,” I said. “And I hate that it makes me feel… ashamed.”
Frank leaned back, and for a second he looked older than he did last night.
“Shame’s useless,” he said. “It doesn’t pay bills. It doesn’t build anything.”
Then he pointed at my phone sitting face-down on the table like it was sleeping.
“You’re gonna go back out there today,” he said. “And the world is gonna do what it does.”
“What’s that?” I asked.