“It’ll be all right, you know.” Danny said, standing a step behind his sister, Freya, as she searched for their next meal in the vendor machine.

Danny and Freya had stepped away from their mother’s room while the nurses tended to her. Earlier that night, when they arrived home, they found their mother face-down on the kitchen floor, blood was pooling from a long gash along her arm. Immediately, Freya called 911 to dispatch for an ambulance.

Their mother had always had the tendency to cut herself when she’s feeling unhappy but being her first-born, Freya had never known her mother to take it so far. She had always knew when to pull back.

“How can you be so sure?” Freya replied, not looking at her brother. “Didn’t you hear the doctor? Mom may not make it through the night. She might had over-done it this time, past the point of no return.”

Danny shrugged, “I guess I just have hope.”

Freya scoffed, “You’re so naive, Danny. Not to burst your bubble but you can’t live off of hope, no one can. This is reality, Danny, not one of your comic book fantasies where everything works out in the end. Happy endings are rarities in life.”

She pressed the number on the keypad for the bag of chips and grabbed the bag when it fell down the opening. Then, she grabbed the 50-cent change and turned to her brother, showing him the quarters, “Two quarters, that’s all I have left. Unless you have cash stashed somewhere, we are broke.” She slumped onto a plastic chair opposite the machine and tore the bag of chips open, exhausted. “I guess this is dinner tonight.”

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