make it sound like I thought this was a good thing. But it didnât come out that way.
My mom looked me in the eye. âIâm sorry, Brandon. You won the lottery. Itâs your money, not ours. Not his.â
âIâm good with it. Iâve got lots in the bank. Donât worry about me.â I didnât really think I had much of a choice. Besides, it was already done. It was too late. Let my dad do his thing and maybe this time he would have his dream come true.
âHe used to buy lottery tickets every week,â my mom said.
âI didnât know that.â
âHe spent fifty dollars each week. And we didnât have it to spare. He kept saying it increased his chances of winning.â
âBut he never won?â
âHe won a few free tickets. Ten dollars here. Twenty there. Thatâs all.â
âI guess thatâs true of most people, right? What are the odds of winning?â
âRidiculously low.â
âBut he quit?â
âHe gave up the lottery, but then, one night, after weâd had an argumentâabout money, of courseâhe emptied our bank account. We only had two thousand dollars but he took it out and went to the casino. He lost it all within two hours.â
âWhat did you do?â
âI nearly left him.â
âI wouldnât blame you.â
âBut I was pregnant with you.â
âOh.â
âSo you saved the marriage, Brandon.â
âNo. Sounds like you saved the marriage.â
âWell, I stayed with him. He didnât gamble again.â
We could both hear my dadâs voice now. He was on the phone to someone. All I could tell was that he sounded rather business-like. He was probably working on his âdealââhis new business. It was now becoming a bit clearer that my partner, my dad, was a gambler on a lot of fronts. He had gambled his savings; he had gambled on the possibility of losing my mom. He had cleaned up his act, though, and made his living, paycheck to paycheck. But now he was banking on me and banking on the fact he could make a profit from owning his own car lot. And I was along for the ride. Or I was the ride.
âSo, Iâm going to have to help him make this new business thing work,â I said.
âIâm not sure I like that,â she said. âYou need your own life. You need to figure out what you want to do.â
But I had no clue about what I wanted to do. My current plan was to finish school. Or not finish school, if I didnât want to. I mean, why bother? I could live off of what Iâd won. If I was smart, and not crazy, I would never have to work a day in my life. I didnât mention any of this to my mom.
I gave my mom a kiss on the forehead. âI think everything is going to be okay,â I told her, and then she stood up and gave me a hug. But I knew that so much was about to change. So much had already changed.
I was thinking about going back downstairs and trying to learn more about the business I was about to get into (or at least bankroll), but my dad was still on the phone and deeply involved in something involving âinventoryâ and âmarkup,â and I decided to let sleeping dogs lie.
Back on the computer, it was like stepping into my own little fantasy world. My inbox was even more crowded. Old friends had resurfaced to renew their friendship. Even kids I hadnât seen since grade one. I had new friends near and far. I had adults begging me for money to save someone who was sick in their family. Fathers losing their home to the bank, mothers trying to get their sons into rehab and needing cash.
And girls. There were girls from school sending me short little notes asking to get together. And girls near and far who wanted to be my âfriend.â Some of them sent pictures. Pretty girls with very sexy looks.
I knew I was probably being foolish but I rather liked my own little lotto fantasyland, and