College life became a survival game for me.

Afraid of having the remaining 300 dollars deducted even further, I lived like a finely tuned machine.

Every day at 6:00 am, I got up to memorize vocabulary. To save money on breakfast, I filled up on tap water.

The cheapest vegetable dish in the cafeteria cost 2 dollars and 50 cents. I ordered just one portion per meal and took advantage of the free refills on soup.

When my roommates invited me out for pizza, I always made excuses about being on a diet. When the class had group dinners, I always said I was busy.

Soon enough, I became known as the weirdo among my classmates. But I didn't care, because I just wanted to survive.

Yet, the body is not a machine. When the first flu of winter hit, I caught it. My fever was 104 degrees Fahrenheit. I felt like I'd been tossed into a furnace that even my bones ached from the heat.

I lay in my dorm bed, too weak to even get up and pour myself a glass of water.

My phone buzzed.

It was Boss—the name I'd save for my mother.

"Where's this week's weekly report? Why haven't you sent it yet?"

The weekly report was another yoke she'd placed on me.

Every Sunday before 8:00 pm, I had to report my study progress, a detailed breakdown of my expenses, and my plan for the following week in no fewer than a thousand words.

I forced my heavy eyelids open and typed with trembling fingers, "Mom, I have a fever of 104 degrees Fahrenheit, so can I send the report a little later?"

The message disappeared into the void.

Ten minutes later, my phone rang.

It wasn't a concerned reply, but a transfer notification.

"Venmo payment received—0.01 dollars."

Immediately after came her voice message.

"Sabrina, physical fitness is also an important component of workplace competitiveness. Dropping the ball at a critical moment proves that your usual health management is completely inadequate.

"Given that you failed to submit your weekly report on time this week and were absent from the evening study session due to illness, your perfect attendance bonus for this month is canceled.

"And your performance rating is a C. Your living allowance for next month will be suspended as a disciplinary measure."

As I listened to Mom's icy voice, tears fell one after another into my pillow.

Suspended? I didn't even have the money to buy fever medicine right now. In fact, I only had 12 dollars and 50 cents left on my card.

"Mom, I'm really suffering. Can you lend me 100 dollars to buy medicine? Consider it an advance on my salary."

My voice trembled as I sent that voice message.

After a long while, she replied, "There's no precedent for salary advances in this company. Figure it out yourself. Don't expect the company to bail you out of everything."

In that moment, I felt like dying.

Burning with fever, I drifted in and out of consciousness, feeling like I might not make it.

My roommate, Jeannette Wood, noticed something was seriously wrong with me. Without a second thought, she carried me on her back to the campus clinic.

Registration, blood tests, and IV fluids came to over 300 dollars in total.

Jeannette covered it for me.

I watched the medicine dripping from the IV bottle, and instead of feeling grateful, all I could think was "How am I ever going to pay Jeannette back?"

The next day, as soon as my fever broke, I secretly pulled out the needle without telling anyone and went to an illegal blood collection station.

I couldn't afford to wait for legal blood donations, since there was a waiting period between donations.

The illegal clinic reeked of cigarette smoke, and the needles were frighteningly thick.

"You get paid 320 dollars for 400ml of blood," the man said, tossing a few crumpled bills at me.

I paid Jeannette back with that money and bought two bread rolls with what was left.

Biting into the cold bread roll, I opened my Instagram feed and saw a new post from Mom.

The photo showed Rodney wearing a brand-new pair of Nike shoes, with a lobster platter laid out in front of him.

The caption read, "Empowering a high-potential stock. Only with good nutrition can the brain work fast. Rodney, you've got this. I'll always have your back, no matter what."

The timestamp was exactly when I was burning up with a fever, begging her to lend me 100 dollars for medicine.

I chewed on the bread roll as tears and snot ran down my face. It turned out that in Mom's project portfolio, I was the non-performing asset that could be written off at any time.

After that desperate act of selling my blood to survive, I changed completely.

I stopped sending Mom those pitiful, pleading messages. I still wrote the weekly reports, but the content was all copy-pasted word salad.

Other than that, I started working like crazy—picking up deliveries for people, waiting tables in the cafeteria, tutoring on weekends, and even posing as a paid model for art students.

As long as it paid and wasn't illegal, I did it.

But one afternoon, just as I got back from a tutoring session, I saw Mom standing at the entrance of my dorm building.

The moment she spotted me, she started shouting, "Sabrina!"

My heart skipped a beat.

"I heard you've been keeping quite busy with your extracurricular work?" She walked up to me. "Carrying out side businesses unrelated to your main responsibilities without authorization—do you think the contract is just a piece of scrap paper?

"If your Aunt Beatrice hadn't told me, I would never have known you had it in you to secretly take on part-time jobs!"

My aunt, Beatrice Knapp, lived near my campus.

By now, some classmates nearby were already looking over with curiosity.

I clenched my fists and said in a low voice, "I need money to live."

"Money? What about your base salary?"

"You suspended it."

Mom let out a cold laugh and suddenly raised her volume. "I suspended it because your performance didn't meet the standards.

"You made a mistake, showed no remorse, and now you dare to set up secondary income and a slush fund behind my back? This is a serious violation of the rules!"

Her voice drew an even larger crowd. My cheeks burned with humiliation, and I just wanted to find a hole to crawl into.

"Mom, can we go back and talk about this? Please?"

"Go back? Why should we go back? What's there to hide? I'm going to check your personal accounts right here, right now."

She snatched my backpack and, in front of everyone, dumped everything out onto the ground. My books, my notes, a ballpoint pen, the 800 dollars I'd just earned from tutoring, and the debit card containing my hard-earned money all came tumbling out.

Mom picked up the debit card and let out a scoff.

"Just as I suspected. Sabrina, you've got quite the nerve."

"Give it back to me!" I shouted, my eyes instantly turning red.

That money was what kept me alive!

She stepped back, clutching the debit card and cash tightly in her hands.

"According to company policy, all income earned through violations is to be confiscated. I'm also temporarily freezing this debit card until you recognize your mistakes."

Having finished berating me, she walked off with the money I'd earned through blood, sweat, and tears.

I crouched down and picked up my belongings one by one, tears falling uncontrollably.

Now, the clause in the contract that read "Upon receiving the National Scholarship, the year-end bonus will be 20 thousand dollars" had become my only reason to keep going.

As the finals approached, I was practically living in the library.

The day the results came out, my GPA was 4.2. I came out at the top of my major. I received 8,000 dollars from the National Scholarship and 3,000 dollars from the First-Class College Scholarship.

I sent the photo of my certificates to Mom right away, with just one sentence attached.

"I got an S+ performance rating. Please be ready to hold up your end of the deal."

But she didn't reply.

Left without a choice, I went home with the transcript and certificates in hand, intending to talk with her about holding up her end of the deal.

I opened the door to a house full of noise and activity.

Aunt Beatrice, the one who'd ratted me out for doing part-time jobs, was there too.

The coffee table was piled high with gift boxes. Rodney sat in the middle of the couch, playing games on the latest iPhone 17 Pro Max.

"Oh my, look who's here—our family's star scholar!" Aunt Beatrice popped some chips into her mouth and continued in a sarcastic tone, "I heard you did pretty well in your finals this time. Since you got a scholarship, shouldn't you treat Rodney to a nice big meal?"

Mom sat in the host seat, her face glowing with pride as she soaked up the flattery.

"She got top of her class, which is fine, I suppose." Her tone was casual, but she couldn't hide the smugness in her eyes.

I couldn't be bothered with Aunt Beatrice. Instead, I slapped a copy of my certificates down on the table and got straight to the point.

"Mom, I've earned the National Scholarship, a top-class GPA, and an S+ performance rating. As per our contract, I'm requesting the 10,000 dollars you promised, plus the 20,000 dollars for the scholarship, which comes to 30,000 dollars in total."

Suddenly, the room went dead quiet, and the three of them exchanged glances.

Rodney looked up at me, then let out a snort. "Sabrina, are you obsessed with money or something?"

The smile on Mom's face froze. She put down her mug and smoothed her collar unhurriedly before saying, "Sabrina, since everyone's here, let's have a year-end review meeting."

She pulled up an Excel spreadsheet and projected it onto the TV.

"This is a cost-performance analysis of your performance this year. Although your results are good, but—" Her tone sharpened. "As you know, the company's current strategic focus is on Rodney.

"He made significant progress this semester—he went from fifth from the bottom to the tenth from the bottom. To reward this kind of breakthrough growth, the board has decided to make an additional investment in him."

She pointed to the new phone in Rodney's hand. "This phone cost 1,700 dollars, and the one-on-one tutoring sessions we signed him up for cost 20,000 dollars. Combined with other miscellaneous expenses, that comes to exactly 30,000 dollars."

She looked at me, utterly convinced of her own righteousness, and concluded, "The source of these funds is your performance bonus."

I was shaking with rage. "On what grounds? I busted my guts for this!"

"On the grounds that I am the one with the money!" Mom slammed her hand on the table. "Without the base salary I provide you every month to keep you afloat, would you have been able to go to college in peace? All of your output rightfully belongs to the company!"

Aunt Beatrice chimed in from the side, "Your mother's right, Sabrina. Rodney is a boy. He's the one who will carry on the family line and take care of things in the future. So, what's wrong with spending a little more on him?"

Rodney waved his phone around smugly. "Sabrina, you win some, and you lose some. Besides, isn't your money the family's money? What's the big deal if I spend it? Don't be such a cheapo."

They played off each other like a chorus, their expressions ugly and smug.

Mom, seeing my "lack of perspective", pulled an envelope from her bag and tossed it at my feet.

"Here's 200 dollars. Consider it a consolation prize for being an excellent employee. You young people need to develop some big-picture thinking. Don't always fixate on these petty little gains."

I looked at the envelope and Mom's "I'm doing this for your own good" expression. Suddenly, I felt this home was even colder than the blizzard raging outside.

"Boss, I don't want the consolation prize." I picked up the envelope and tore it to shreds in front of everyone. "And since you love talking about contracts so much…"

I pulled a document, one I'd prepared a long time ago, from my backpack.

"This is my letter of resignation. I'm terminating my employment."