Chapter 5 - Back to Zero
The next morning, I woke up in the cab of my rusted pickup truck parked behind the 24-hour grocery store where my journey had begun three years ago.
The rain had stopped, leaving behind a damp, biting chill that seeped through the cracked window seals. My phone buzzed on the dashboard—a text message from a debt collection agency reminding me that my overdue car payments were now going to legal arbitration.
For three years, I had believed that marrying Evelyn was my ticket out of this miserable loop. I had thought I was the smart one, playing the long game while the old world crumbled around me.
Now, sitting in the cramped, smelly cab with nothing but a cardboard box full of harsh truths, I realized the terrifying irony:
Evelyn hadn't been my trap. She had been my only escape hatch from my own worthless character. And I had slammed the door in my own face.
I turned the ignition key. The engine coughed twice, sputtered, and died.
I slammed my hands against the steering wheel, my chest tightening with a panic that felt entirely different from the debt panic of my past. This wasn't about money anymore. This was about the fact that I was twenty-eight years old, completely bankrupt in spirit, and responsible for the loneliness of the only person who had ever looked past my garbage exterior and treated me like a human being.
"Time to start over," I muttered to myself, turning the key again until the engine finally caught with a shuddering roar.
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I didn't drive to a diner. I drove straight to the industrial district on the south side of town, where the heavy labor yards hired men with no questions asked and paid cash at the end of the shift.
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