We were driving down the street, that one with all the nice houses. The one that’s quiet during the day, the one that’s hidden away from the world, but is a major artery, the way to get to the middle school. Why is it so far from the high school, and the elementary?

Driving down that street, watching for the house you wanted to show me, I thought, hell, living here isn’t so bad. We might actually be able to rent this place, move out of the apartment. Maybe I could finally have memories of a house, the excitement of knowing I had a safe place to come home to.

But then I remember your job, how you’re not going to be there anymore. And I think about the fact that I can’t work anywhere, because I’m too young. I hate myself for not being able to help. I wish desperately that we could get just one break.

And then I think of the kids in the worse parts of the world. How they have to deal with no school, poorer living conditions than any homeless United States resident. I think that they have it a lot worse than we ever have; we at least don’t have the fear of men with guns coming to take away our life’s work. No rogue group can kick us out of our homes, the social system frowns upon it too greatly.

I am quiet when you point the house out, a nice blue two-story with white trim on a corner lot. I don’t want to get my hopes up, because I know there is no way we can save for a deposit when you have no job. It’s not that I don’t have faith in you.

It’s that I wouldn’t trust life with my soul.