Chapter 6

The advisor turned to my mother again, looking puzzled.

"Aren't you always swamped with work? What made you come all the way to campus today?"

My mother glanced at me, looking a little helpless.

"I heard she was sick. I couldn't stop worrying, so I cleared my whole schedule and drove for hours to come see her."

Something in my chest stirred.

My mother had actually put everything else aside... for me?

But I didn't understand. If she truly cared about me that much, how could she be so cruel as to let me live like this?

Hearing that, the advisor immediately took my mother's arm and said.

"You must be starving after that long drive."

"Come on, let me take you to a nice restaurant off campus. We haven't sat down alone, just the two of us, in ages."

"There's no need to go to all that trouble."

My mother gently refused, then looked at me and said coolly.

"Go get your meal card and buy me a plate of food. I'd like to taste for myself just how good the dining hall cooking is here, since it apparently makes you so frugal that you'll eat other people's leftovers."

I looked at my mother, lowered my head, and murmured.

"I don't have any money."

My mother's temper flared in an instant. She frowned and snapped at me.

"Theresa, how many times do I have to hear this?"

"I transfer fifty thousand dollars to your advisor every month for your living expenses. It's barely the start of the month, and you keep telling me you have no money? Where did all of it go?!"

The entire dining hall fell silent.

My eyes went wide, and I stared at my mother in disbelief.

"Fifty thousand?"

"My monthly living expenses are only two hundred dollars..."

My mother froze for a moment at my words.

The next second, her brows furrowed, and she said coldly.

"Theresa, what nonsense are you spouting?"

"How could I possibly give you only two hundred dollars a month?"

"You'd really lie about something like this just to embarrass me?"

I was lying?

I'd fallen so low I was picking through other people's leftovers, and she still thought I was lying?

Before I could get a word out, a voice rang across the dining hall.

"Ma'am, Theresa isn't lying. She really does only have two hundred dollars a month to live on."

It was my roommate, Constance Lambert.

She stepped out of the crowd, made her way over and stopped beside me, and spoke to my mother seriously.

"Theresa and I live in the same dorm room. No one knows better than I do how she's been living.”

"I've seen it myself. Every day, she eats either plain rice with vegetables or instant noodles. For months now, she hasn't touched a single piece of meat."

I felt a warm rush of gratitude when she stood up for me.

For months, everyone had thought my poverty was shameful and kept their distance. Constance was the only one who quietly looked out for me.

Whenever she saw me diluting my toiletries with water because I couldn't bear to replace them, she'd offer to share hers with me.

When she saw me shivering through the dead of winter in a thin hoodie, my hands swollen and purple from the cold, she'd lend me hers.

Sometimes she'd deliberately grab an extra serving, then make up an excuse about not being able to finish it, and quietly slide half of it into my bowl.

She knew better than anyone just how badly I'd been living.

When Constance finished, murmurs of agreement spread through the dining hall.

"That's right, I can vouch for it too. I'm Theresa's class president. Back when I went to collect textbook and class dues from her, she'd agonize over it for days, taking on odd jobs wherever she could just to scrape together the few dozen or hundred dollars she owed."

"I often saw her working odd jobs around campus. Handing out flyers in the blazing summer heat until her skin peeled, she wouldn't even spend a dollar on a bottle of water when she got thirsty. She'd crouch by the roadside and drink straight from a tap instead."