The Loans We take For Love 💕

Chapter 14

The Loans We Take for Love

Chapter 14: The Summer I Stopped Running and Started Building, and the Loans Finally Became Just Numbers

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The summer after sophomore year arrived like a door left open.

Naomi had applied for internships in January, skeptical and exhausted, her fingers moving across the keyboard without hope. She had written cover letters that felt like lies—I am a dedicated student with a passion for structural engineering—and submitted them into the void. Seventeen applications. Seventeen rejections. She had stopped checking her email.

Then, on the last day of finals, an offer.

A small engineering firm in the next city—twenty miles from campus, accessible by bus. Paid internship. Fifteen dollars an hour, thirty hours a week. The email was brief, almost apologetic, as if they expected her to say no.

Naomi read it three times.

Then she called Eli.

"I got an internship," she said. Her voice was flat, disbelieving.

"I know."

"How do you know?"

"Because you deserve it. And because you told me you applied. I've been praying you'd get it."

"I don't pray."

"I pray enough for both of us."

She almost laughed. Almost cried. She did neither. She just sat on her dorm room floor, the phone pressed to her ear, and let the news settle into her bones.

Fifteen dollars an hour. Thirty hours a week. Four hundred and fifty dollars a week before taxes. Enough to cover her summer expenses. Enough to save for the fall. Enough to stop the bleeding.

"This changes everything," she said.

"No," Eli said. "You changed everything. The internship is just proof."

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She moved into a sublet for the summer—a tiny room in a shared house near the engineering firm, rented from a senior who was studying abroad. The room was smaller than her dorm, the walls thin, the mattress lumpy. But it had a window that faced east, and in the morning, the sun poured through like honey.

Naomi unpacked her few belongings. Her laptop. Her textbooks. Her spiral notebook, still hidden under her mattress. Her clothes, folded neatly in a cardboard box. She hung a small mirror on the wall and looked at her reflection.

She was still thin. Still tired. But her eyes had changed. The shadows were still there, but beneath them was something new. Something that looked like hope.

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The internship was hard.

Not the work—the work was satisfying, challenging, the kind of math that made her feel alive. She was assigned to a small team working on a bridge inspection project, analyzing load capacities and stress points. Her supervisor, a woman named Theresa who had been in engineering for twenty years, treated her like a junior colleague, not a coffee-fetcher.

"You're good at this," Theresa said after Naomi's first week. "Really good. Where did you learn?"

"School. And practice."

"You have a natural instinct for load distribution. That's not something they teach."

Naomi didn't know what to say. She had never been praised for her natural instincts. She had only been praised for her endurance, her stubbornness, her ability to survive.

"Thank you," she said.

Theresa nodded. "Don't thank me. Just keep showing up."

She did. Every day. Early. Ready.

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The money changed things.

Naomi sat at the kitchen table of the shared house on a Saturday morning, her spiral notebook open in front of her. She had been paid three times now—enough to cover her rent, her food, her bus pass, and still have money left over.

She recalculated her loans. The total was still terrifying—forty-four thousand now, with interest—but for the first time, she could see a path. A long, narrow, brutal path. But a path.

She added a new line to the notebook: Summer savings: $1,200.

It was not enough. It would never be enough. But it was something.

She closed the notebook and put it back under her mattress.

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Eli visited in July.

He took the bus from his parents' house, a two-hour ride through farmland and small towns, and arrived on a Saturday afternoon with a backpack and a six-pack of soda. Naomi met him at the bus station, and when she saw him step off the bus, something in her chest loosened.

"You came," she said.

"I said I would."

"I know. I just… didn't believe it."

He hugged her. It was brief, awkward, the kind of hug between people who did not hug often. But it was warm.

"Show me around," he said.

She showed him. The engineering firm, closed for the weekend, its glass doors reflecting the summer sun. The shared house, with its thin walls and lumpy mattresses. The bus stop where she waited every morning at 6:47 AM. The grocery store where she bought rice and beans and sometimes, when she was feeling extravagant, eggs.

"This is where you live," Eli said. It wasn't a question.

"This is where I live."

"It's small."

"It's mine."

He looked at her. The summer sun was bright, casting sharp shadows. "Yeah," he said. "It is."

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They sat on the porch that night, drinking soda, watching the fireflies.

"Do you ever think about him?" Eli asked. "Darian."

Naomi considered the question. A year ago, it would have sent her spiraling. Now, it was just a question.

"Sometimes," she said. "Not in the way I used to. I don't miss him. I don't wish things had been different. I just… remember. Like a scar. It's there. It doesn't hurt anymore."

"That's healing."

"Maybe." She took a sip of her soda. "What about Caleb? Do you think he's healed?"

Eli shrugged. "Caleb is Caleb. He'll find someone else. He'll be fine."

"Do you think he's a good person?"

"I think he's trying to be. There's a difference."

Naomi nodded. She thought about Damon, engaged now, building the life he had once offered her. She thought about her mother, alone in that house with the locked doors and the Bible on every surface. She thought about her father, three states away, still sending promises he couldn't keep.

She thought about herself.

"Am I a good person?" she asked.

Eli turned to look at her. The fireflies flickered in the darkness behind him.

"You're the best person I know," he said. "Not because you're perfect. Because you keep going. Because you don't give up. Because you're still kind, even after everything."

"I'm not kind."

"You brought me soda. You didn't have to do that."

She almost laughed. "It's just soda."

"It's not just soda. It's the fact that you thought about someone else when you have so little to think with." He paused. "That's kindness, Naomi. That's who you are."

She looked away. The fireflies were beautiful, small and bright, burning themselves out against the dark.

"Thank you," she said.

"Don't thank me. Just keep being you."

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Caleb moved on in July.

She heard about it through a mutual friend—someone from high school who still kept in touch. "Caleb's dating someone new. She's nice. He seems happy."

Naomi felt nothing. Not jealousy. Not relief. Just a quiet acknowledgment that a chapter had closed.

She texted him: "I heard you're seeing someone. I'm happy for you."

He replied: "Thanks. She's great. I hope you're doing okay."

"I am."

"Good. Take care of yourself, Naomi."

"You too, Caleb."

She deleted the conversation. Not because it hurt. Because it was over.

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Darian was nowhere.

She had not seen him since the spring mixer. She had not heard his name in weeks. The engineering department was large enough that two people could move through it without intersecting, and Naomi had learned to navigate its hallways with her eyes forward, her footsteps quick.

She did not wonder where he was. She did not wonder who he was dating now. She did not wonder if he regretted what he had done.

He was a ghost. And ghosts, she had learned, lost their power when you stopped believing in them.

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August arrived, hot and heavy.

Naomi's internship ended with a small party—pizza and soda in the conference room, Theresa giving a short speech about the summer's accomplishments. Naomi stood in the back, a paper plate in her hand, and felt something she had not felt in years.

Pride.

Not the fragile pride of survival. Not the desperate pride of proving herself wrong. Just pride. Solid. Earned.

"You did good work," Theresa said, appearing at her elbow. "If you want a letter of recommendation, I'll write you one."

"I'd like that."

"And when you graduate, let me know. We might have a spot for you."

Naomi stared at her. "Really?"

"Really. You're talented, Naomi. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

She walked back to the shared house that evening, the summer sun setting behind her, the air thick with humidity. She climbed the stairs to her tiny room, sat on her lumpy mattress, and opened her spiral notebook.

She added the summer's earnings. She subtracted the summer's expenses. She recalculated her loans.

The mountain was still there. But for the first time, she could see the summit.

She closed the notebook and put it back under her mattress.

Then she lay down and stared at the ceiling. No cracks. The room was small, but it was hers. The summer was over, but the fall was coming. And she was ready.

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Her phone buzzed. A text from Eli: "Back on campus next week. Save me a seat in the front row."

She typed back: "Front row is reserved for weirdos only. You qualify."

"Good. Bring coffee."

"You bring coffee."

"Fine. I'll bring coffee. You bring yourself."

Naomi smiled. A real smile. The kind that reached her eyes.

"Deal," she wrote.

She turned off her phone and closed her eyes.

The summer was over. The loans were still there. The mother's door was still locked. The father was still absent. The sister was still far away.

But Naomi Cruz was still standing. And for the first time in a long time, standing felt like enough.

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End of Chapter 14

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