I Signed Away Eight Million To Leave Him Chapter 06
He looked uncomfortable. “Mrs. Vale said you might need some help getting settled.”
“I know she means well.”
I held out the envelope.
“But what I need most right now is to know I can live on my own.”
A week later, I found a job as a librarian at a local public school.
The pay was modest, but the work was steady.
Every morning at seven-thirty, I arrived on campus, reshelved returned books, helped students find materials, and spent my lunch breaks mending torn pages.
There were no reporters waiting outside.
No one staring at my dress, my accent, or my table manners.
The students only wanted to know why the checkout system had frozen again or when the next volume of their favorite graphic novel would arrive.
There was a quiet freedom in problems that simple.
On new student orientation day, the gym was packed with parents and teenagers.
I was carrying a stack of library handouts toward our booth when I bumped into someone.
The papers scattered across the floor.
“Sorry.”
I crouched to pick them up just as the other person bent down to help.
He gathered the last of the flyers and then froze.
“Mara?”
I looked up and saw a face that was both familiar and a world away.
He was wearing the school’s dark blue polo, and his staff badge read—
Student Counselor, Eli Torres.