The Loans We take For Love 💕

chapter 7

The Loans We Take for Love

Chapter 7: The Loans I Took When No One Else Would Sign, and the Meals I Skipped So I Could Stay Afloat

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The second semester of freshman year arrived like a freight train Naomi had been standing on the tracks to meet.

She had survived the fall. Barely. The breakup had carved a hole in her chest, but the hole had scabbed over, then scarred, then become just another part of her landscape. She didn't think about Darian every hour anymore. Sometimes she went whole days without hearing his name. The engineering department was small, but she had learned to navigate its hallways with her head down, her eyes forward, her footsteps quick.

The loans, however, did not heal.

She sat in the financial aid office on a Tuesday in January, the windows fogged with winter breath, a stack of papers trembling in her hands. The woman across the desk—Ms. Harrow, nameplate polished, smile professional—had reviewed Naomi's file with the kind of efficiency that felt like dismissal.

"Your mother's income is listed as sixty-two thousand dollars," Ms. Harrow said, not looking up. "That puts you above the threshold for need-based grants."

"My mother isn't paying for my education."

"I understand. But the FAFSA considers parental income until you're twenty-four, unless you're married, have dependents, or are in the military."

Naomi had heard this before. She had read the same words on the website, in the handbook, in the rejection letters that had piled up on her desk like snowdrifts. She was eighteen. She was not married. She had no children. She was not a soldier. She was just a girl whose mother had money and refused to spend it.

"I need a private loan," Naomi said. Her voice was steady. She had practiced this script.

Ms. Harrow finally looked up. Her eyes were kind, which made it worse. Kindness was a luxury Naomi could not afford. "Private loans require a cosigner. Someone with good credit. Someone who agrees to take responsibility if you can't pay."

Naomi thought of her mother, who would never sign. Her father, whose credit was ruined by years of underemployment. Her sister, who was still paying off her own loans. She thought of Eli, who was eighteen and had no credit history. She thought of Caleb, who was remorseful but not a cosigner.

"I don't have a cosigner," she said.

Ms. Harrow nodded slowly. "There are private lenders who offer no-cosigner loans to students with demonstrated academic merit. The interest rates are higher. The terms are less favorable. But they exist."

"Show me."

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The interest rate was eleven percent.

Naomi stared at the document on her laptop screen, the numbers blurring together. Eleven percent meant that for every dollar she borrowed, she would pay back more than two by the time she graduated. It meant that her monthly payments after school would be larger than her rent. It meant that she was signing away a piece of her future that she might never get back.

She signed anyway.

Her fingers moved across the keyboard, typing her name into the digital signature box. The loan was approved in seconds. Five thousand dollars, deposited directly into her bank account. It would cover tuition for the spring semester. It would leave nothing for books, food, transportation.

She would figure that out later.

She closed her laptop and lay down on her bed. The ceiling cracks had multiplied—twenty-seven now, or maybe twenty-eight. She had stopped counting. Counting was for girls who believed numbers could save them.

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She took a second job.

The campus café paid minimum wage plus tips, which were generous from students who had never worried about money and stingy from those who had. Her shifts were in the evenings, after her classes, and she worked until closing most nights, wiping down counters and brewing fresh pots for the morning crowd.

The second job was at a small bakery off campus, owned by a woman named Gloria who hired Naomi after tasting her brownies. "You've got a gift," Gloria said. "But you work too hard. You need to sleep."

Naomi smiled and didn't tell her that sleep was the first thing she had cut.

She worked at the bakery on weekends, waking at 4:00 AM to measure flour and sugar, her hands raw from kneading dough, her back aching from standing. Gloria paid her in cash, under the table, no taxes. It was illegal. Naomi didn't care. She needed the money.

She stopped buying coffee. Eli still brought it to her in the library—black, no sugar—and she drank it without mentioning that she had not purchased a coffee for herself in three weeks.

She stopped buying lunch. She told herself it was intermittent fasting. She told herself her mother would approve. She told herself a lot of things.

She lost eight pounds.

Eli noticed.

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"You're not eating," he said one afternoon in February. The library was quiet, the snow falling outside the windows, the world muffled and white. His coffee cup sat between them, untouched.

"I'm eating," Naomi said.

"When?"

She didn't answer.

"I've been paying attention," he continued. "You don't get food at the café. You don't bring lunch. You haven't touched the vending machine in weeks. You're losing weight, Naomi. You didn't have weight to lose."

She looked at him. His face was calm, but his eyes were sharp. He was not angry. He was worried. That was worse.

"I can't afford it," she said. The words came out flat, matter-of-fact. She had stopped being embarrassed about the truth. Embarrassment was a luxury.

"Then let me help."

"No."

"Naomi—"

"I said no." Her voice was harder than she intended. She softened it. "Eli, you're already doing so much. The coffee. The study sessions. Sitting with me when I'm falling apart. I can't take your money."

"It's not money. It's food. I'll just bring extra. You won't even notice."

"I'll notice."

"Then pretend you don't."

She stared at him. He stared back. Neither of them blinked.

Finally, she looked away. "Fine. But just until the end of the semester."

"Just until the end of the semester," he agreed.

She knew it was a lie. He knew it was a lie. But the lie was warm, and the winter was cold, and Naomi was tired of being cold.

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Caleb tried to push for more.

He had been respectful for weeks—sitting beside her in the library, walking her to her dorm, texting her good night without asking for anything in return. He was patient. He was kind. He was everything she had wanted him to be in high school.

But patience, for Caleb, had an expiration date.

"You're avoiding me," he said one night in March. They were sitting on a bench outside the engineering building, the air finally warm enough to breathe. The sun was setting, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink.

"I'm not avoiding you," Naomi said. "I'm busy."

"You're always busy. You work two jobs. You take eighteen credits. You study every night. You don't have time for anything except surviving."

"That's not a complaint. That's just my life."

Caleb turned to face her. His knee brushed against hers. She didn't move away, but she didn't lean in.

"I want more," he said. "I've been patient. I've been respectful. I've given you space. But I can't pretend anymore, Naomi. I want to be with you. Not just as a friend. As something real."

Naomi looked at him. His eyes were earnest, hopeful, the same eyes that had looked at her in high school before he walked away. She wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe that people could change, that remorse could become action, that love could be rebuilt from the ruins of cowardice.

But she had believed in Darian too. And Darian had taught her that belief was a weapon people used against you.

"I can't," she said.

"Why?"

"Because I'm not ready. Because I don't trust myself to choose. Because every time I look at you, I remember the boy who left me crying in a parking lot, and I don't know if the boy in front of me is real or just another version of the same mistake."

Caleb flinched. "That's not fair."

"Fair doesn't exist. Fair is for people who have the luxury of being fair. I don't have that luxury." She stood up. "I'm sorry, Caleb. I am. But I need to focus on surviving. I can't survive and also worry about your feelings."

She walked away. He didn't follow.

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Darian's new relationship was announced on a Tuesday.

Naomi heard about it from a girl in her structural analysis class—a girl who didn't know the history, who just assumed Naomi would be happy for him.

"Did you see? Darian and that girl from chem lab are official. He posted a photo. They look so cute together."

Naomi smiled. "Good for him."

The girl nodded and turned back to her notes. Naomi stared at her textbook, the equations blurring.

She pulled out her phone. She had unfollowed Darian months ago, but the photo was everywhere—on Marcus's page, on Jenna's page, on the pages of people she didn't even know. Darian and a girl with blonde hair and a wide smile, his arm around her waist, his face turned toward the camera with the same practiced charm he had once turned on Naomi.

She's hotter, the whispers had said.

Naomi closed her phone. She did not cry. She did not feel the sharp stab of jealousy she had expected. She just felt… nothing. A quiet, hollow nothing that was almost peaceful.

He was not her problem anymore. His new girlfriend was not her problem. The loans were her problem. The work was her problem. The mother who had locked the door was her problem.

She opened her textbook and solved the next problem set.

---

That night, she updated her spiral notebook.

She added the new loan. Five thousand dollars at eleven percent. She added her expenses. Rent. Food—less than before. Bus pass. Textbooks—used, always used. She subtracted her income. Café job. Bakery job. Tutoring. Every dollar accounted for.

The math was still brutal. She would run out of money in three months if something didn't change.

She closed the notebook and put it back under her mattress. Then she lay down and stared at the ceiling. The cracks had multiplied again. She stopped counting.

She thought about Caleb's face when she walked away. She thought about Darian's arm around the blonde girl. She thought about Eli's coffee, warm in her hands, the only warmth she could afford.

She thought about her mother's voice: "You're on your own."

She was on her own. But she was still here. Still breathing. Still studying. Still working. Still refusing to break.

Body count: one, she thought. But that doesn't define me. The loans don't define me. The mother doesn't define me.

I define me.

She closed her eyes and slept without dreaming.

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End of Chapter 7