Upon opening the door, hugged him...
"Stan, what a pleasant surprise." She smiled, tired, genuine, the kind of smile that reaches the eyes even when the body behind it is running on fus. "Co in, co in. Have you eaten?"
They sat at her small kitchen table, the sa table where he’d done his howork as a child, and she slid an envelope across to him.
"Here. This month’s living expenses."
Stan looked at the envelope. He could feel how thick it was, or rather, how thin. Twenty-five hundred dollars. She’d given him everything this ti. Her entire salary. Not the usual thousand, all of it.
The tightness in his chest beca sothing closer to pain.
"Sis, I don’t need this anymore."
He pushed the envelope back toward her gently.
She frowned. "What do you an? Of course you need it. Tuition is,"
"I have my own inco now. I don’t need you to support anymore."
Her eyes searched his face, worry flickering behind the fatigue. "You went back to delivering food again, didn’t you? Stan, I’ve told you a hundred tis, you don’t need to do that. Focus on your studies. I can handle the money. That’s my job. Let ,"
"I won a lottery," Stan said.
His sister stopped mid-sentence.
"A few days ago. A hundred thousand dollars."
It was, objectively, a terrible lie. The kind of excuse a child would invent. But Stan couldn’t exactly tell her the truth; like how absurd will it be if he suddenly says, "actually, sis, I have a supernatural financial system that gives rebates on money I spend on beautiful won, and my current net worth is sowhere north of six hundred million dollars" so the lottery it was.
His sister’s eyes went wide.
"A hundred thousand?" Her hand ca up to cover her mouth. "Stan, that’s, that’s wonderful! A hundred thousand dollars!"
The worry in her expression lted away, replaced by pure, uncomplicated joy, the kind of happiness that had nothing to do with the money itself and everything to do with the belief that her little brother’s life had just gotten a little easier.
She didn’t question it. She didn’t ask for proof. She simply believed him, the way she’d always believed him, because doubting Stan Harrison was sothing his sister had never learned how to do.
"Sis." Stan reached across the table and pushed the envelope firmly back into her hands. "Keep this. All of it. From now on, you don’t give money anymore. And I an it, no more skipping lunch. Promise ."
Her stomach had been bad for years. Stan knew the cause, years of irregular als, too much stress, too little rest. The damage was already done, and every skipped lunch made it worse.
"I want you to eat properly. Every day. No excuses."
His sister looked down at the envelope, then back up at him. Her eyes glistened slightly.
"Okay," she said softly. "I promise."
They talked for a while after that, the easy, aimless conversation of two people who didn’t need a topic to enjoy each other’s company. She asked about his classes. He asked about her weekend. She made tea. And he drank it, even though the tea was cheap his sister made good tea.
He offered to send her so money but his sister vehently refused, saying if he sends her money without consent that she’ll reverse it... She wanted him to invest it on sothing good and legit or just save it and use it to forward his career after school...
Eventually, she yawned, and excused herself to her room.
"I have an early start tomorrow. You know how it is."
Stan nodded. He did know how it was. That was precisely the problem.
He was tidying the kitchen, washing their two teacups, wiping down the counter, the small dostic rituals of a brother who didn’t know how else to say I’m sorry I couldn’t help sooner, when he heard it.
A sound from her bedroom. Muffled, barely audible through the thin wall.
Crying.
Stan’s hands went still on the counter.
"What? Overti again?"
Her voice was raw, cracked, thick with the kind of frustration that only builds over years.
"Why is it always ? Every single ti, why don’t they make anyone else do it?"
A shaking breath. A sniffle. Then, quieter:
"They don’t even pay for it. Not a single dollar. Six days this week. Six days of overti and not one extra dollar on my check."
Another sob, harder this ti, less controlled.
"I can’t, I can’t keep doing this. But I can’t quit. If I quit, Stan doesn’t,"
She stopped herself. Drew a shuddering breath. The crying continued, but the words stopped. She was swallowing them now, the way she always did. Pushing the pain back down into the place where she kept everything she didn’t want him to see.
Stan stood motionless in the kitchen, one hand still resting on the damp counter, and felt sothing inside him go very cold and very still.
He knew about the overti. He’d known for years, in the abstract, the way you know about a problem you’ve been unable to solve. But hearing it like this, hearing her cry like this, alone in her room, at the end of another week of unpaid labor and institutional cruelty, was different from knowing.
This was the sound of soone who had spent years being systematically broken by people who knew she couldn’t fight back.
Her manager. Stan had heard the stories in fragnts over the years, casual ntions disguised as jokes, small complaints quickly retracted, the careful language of a woman who didn’t want her little brother to worry. But the pattern was clear.
Her manager suppressed her at every turn, blocked her promotions, claid credit for her work, loaded her with overti while the rest of the team left at five. She was more capable than half the people above her, and that was precisely the problem. Her competence was a threat, so it was punished.
And she’d endured it. For years. Silently. Without complaint. Because quitting ant losing the inco that kept Stan in school, and keeping Stan in school was the only thing in her life she refused to compromise on.
Stan’s jaw tightened until sothing in his temple pulsed.
’She suffered all of this. For .’
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