The Price of Deception, A Broken Man

For three years, every ache in my artist' s hands, every mile on my delivery bike, every humiliating monster costume in a haunted escape room, had a purpose: Sophia.

"Her mother is sick," she' d told me, her eyes wet, "crushed by a mountain of medical debt."

So, I worked, pouring every dollar and ounce of my being into a future where her worry would finally vanish.

But on a Saturday night, lurking in the stale, fog-filled hall of that escape room, an emergency exit burst open, flooding the space with laughter.