“If we get a fancy house then I bet they’ll let you. I don’t really know much about how it pays.”

"I'm, like, a poor single twenty-two-year-old high school dropout who's already living with two kids and her great-grandmother. I wouldn't let me adopt kids. And I really don't think it pays like a job, mostly just enough for expenses."

“Okay, but would it be good for you?” 

" - that's not really relevant."

“That’s pretty much the only thing I’m here for. Well, also whether it’s good for the kids but good for you is good for them, mostly.”

"I don't think predictably wrecking more things will be good for me."

“Kay.”

"M'sorry."

“I’m really glad whoever did this to you is a vampire so I can murder them.”

"Has vampires. - and not even really him, I did this to me."

“If he’s not himself a vampire then I probably can’t kill him.

Might be a demon,” he says more cheerfully.

She misses her shake. Stirring her shake would be awesome right now.

"No one else - we were fine, and then I made choices, and they were bad ones, and now I can't feed my kids, and I'm sorry that this is not a very sympathetic backstory, but it's how things are."

“I mean, at some point vampires got involved. I would not be very surprised if that wasn’t the first sketchy thing that happened.”

Sigh. "Well, I wish you luck in fighting the vampires."

Sigh.

"Sorry."

“You keep saying that.”

"My Karen does too so maybe it's not a sign anything's wrong but it seems like it also might be a sign you're - "

He pauses, unhappy, for quite a while. 

" - it seems like it's maybe a sign you're vastly, vastly underestimating how much it'd take to annoy me."

"...possibly. 

"I'm annoyed with me."

"That makes sense! And being annoyed about the situation also makes sense, if I were in it I'd be miserable, just - just don't be expecting I'll care? Because I'll leave if you tell me that you really honestly want me to even if I'm telling the truth about everything but there isn't anything else that'd make me leave."

"...OK. I don't - super want you to leave but I'm not really holding my breath for this to fix anything. Except the vampires. I guess I would be unsurprised if you fixed the vampires."

"I am honestly pretty sure I can fix the vampires and make six thousand dollars though I don't know how long it'll take and then we can figure things out from there."

"How're you planning to do the second thing?"

"Is there the slightest chance that if I say 'don't worry about it' you won't worry about it?"