Should i just give up ?

I counted the money the way I always did—slow, careful, like touching something fragile. Every bill had a memory: babysitting on cold Fridays, stacking shelves while my friends went out, the summer I woke before dawn to wash dishes that never seemed to end. I kept it in a shoebox under my bed, wrapped in a grocery bag so it wouldn’t smell like dust. College wasn’t a dream to me. It was a plan. It had weight. Dad knew about the box. He said he was proud of me. He said he wished he’d been that smart at my age. The night it disappeared, the house felt hollow. Not quiet—hollow. The TV murmured from the living room, some game show with lights too bright for how late it was. I went to my room, slid the shoebox out, and felt the wrongness before I opened it. The bag was gone. The box was light. Lighter than it had ever been. I stood there longer than I want to admit, like the money might remember me and come back. Dad didn’t look at me when I asked. He kept his eyes on the screen, jaw tight, fingers drumming the arm of the couch. “I’ll fix it,” he said, like a reflex. Like a prayer he’d already said too many times. I asked how. He said he had a system. He said it was just a loan. He said he loved me. The casino was an hour away, but it lived in our house now. It lived in the way he checked his phone at dinner, in the way bills piled up unopened, in the way apologies came faster than change. I learned new words I didn’t want to know—odds, parlays, streaks. I learned the sound of a man losing hope one bet at a time. Weeks passed. Then months. Every time I asked, he had a story: a near win, a bad beat, tomorrow. Tomorrow became a room I was never allowed to enter. College acceptance letters came. I lined them up on my desk, neat and hopeful. I imagined dorm rooms and libraries and being someone who wasn’t afraid of the future. Then the emails came—about deposits, deadlines, money I didn’t have anymore. I read them at night so no one would see my face change. Dad cried once. Not loud. Just a soft breaking sound, like something tearing you can’t sew back together. He promised again. He swore he was done. I wanted to believe him because not believing meant grieving someone who was still alive. I took a job at a warehouse. I stopped talking about school. People praised me for being “mature,” for “stepping up.” They didn’t see how heavy that praise was. They didn’t see me calculating hours instead of credits, shifts instead of semesters. Sometimes I dream of the shoebox. In the dream, it’s heavy again. In the dream, I lift it and feel certain. Then I wake up and the certainty is gone and the house is still hollow. I love my dad. That’s the worst part. Love doesn’t protect you from loss. It makes the loss smarter. It knows exactly where to hurt. He’s trying now. I think he is. He goes to meetings. He avoids old friends. He doesn’t ask about the box anymore. I don’t know if forgiveness is something you decide or something that grows back slowly, like trust with a limp. What I know is this: the money was more than money. It was proof that I could build something with my own hands. When it vanished, it took a piece of my future with it. But I am still here. I am still counting—time, chances, the distance between who I was saving to become and who I’m becoming anyway.

And some nights, when the house is quiet in the right way, I imagine a different box. Not under a bed, not hidden. One I carry with me. One that can’t be taken. I still have hope, if someone is willing to help me, please contact me. Thank you for your time reading this