In that exact instant, none of my accounts mattered anymore.

The overdue rent. The electric bill. The fear of someone taking advantage of me. Everything shrank to nothing compared to that empty inhaler on the table and a twenty-six-year-old young man who was choosing to choke on his own pride rather than cry out for help.

The Choice to Help

“Mark,” I said, making my voice as steady as possible, “when was the last time you used a full one?”

He didn’t answer. He just sat on the edge of the mattress, as if his legs could no longer bear the weight of his own lies.

“I don’t know,” he whispered. “I was rationing it. Once in the morning, once at night. Lately, only when I felt my chest completely closing up.”

“You can’t ration medicine like that.”

“I know.” He said it with a sudden flash of anger—not directed at me, but at his own body. At money. At this city that sometimes swallows you whole between packed trains, impossible rents, and jobs where you are entirely replaceable before anyone even bothers to learn your name.

I walked over to the table and picked up the prescription. “We’re going to the pharmacy.”

Mark looked up sharply. “No, Diana. You’ve already done too much.”

“I wasn’t asking.”

“I don’t want to owe you anything else.”

“Then don’t owe me. Just live.”

That shut him up.

Getting a Lifeline

Outside, the afternoon in Wicker Park carried on as if nothing had happened. A bicycle rattled down the median. The rich scent of street food from the corner cart drifted into the yard. A few blocks away on the main avenue, cars honked relentlessly, as if the world’s problems could be solved by sheer noise.

Mark stood up slowly, needing to lean against the wall for support. That was when I got genuinely scared. It wasn’t just hunger, and it wasn’t just exhaustion. It was that faint, hidden wheeze in his chest—barely audible, like an old door creaking shut from the inside.

“You’re not driving right now,” I told him.

“I can.”

“No, you can’t.”

He looked at me, his eyes glassy. “If I leave my car here and walk away, tomorrow I won’t have a way to move my things.”

“You’re not leaving tomorrow.”

“Diana…”

“You are not leaving tomorrow,” I repeated. “Not while you’re in this condition.”

He stared at me as if I had struck him. Not out of pain, but absolute shock. When you are drowning, you get used to every sentence being a push back down.
“Get out.” “Pay up.” “Figure it out.”
When someone finally says
“stay,”
your body doesn’t even know what to do with all its armor.

We walked out through the patio gate. He moved slowly, his hoodie zipped all the way to his chin despite the mild weather. At the pharmacy, I asked for the inhaler. Mark stepped to the side, pretending to look at toothbrushes. When the cashier stated the price, he closed his eyes.

It wasn’t a fortune to someone who still had a safety net. But it was an insurmountable wall for someone with three dollars and sixty cents left to his name.

I bought two. One for right now, and one so he would never have to count his breaths again. He reached out to carry the bag, but his hand was shaking.