Faking Poverty, Dying From It

Luna has always known her family is poor. Her clothes are hand-me-downs, there is never pocket money, and her parents work endlessly at their stand, urging her to be sensible. So when nosebleeds, bruises and exhaustion point to a serious illness, she hides her fear rather than burden them. Asked what they would do if she had cancer, her parents vow they would sell everything to cure her.

That night Luna decides she cannot ruin them. She writes a letter, swallows a bottle of her mother's old sleeping pills, and lies down to die. But as the pills take hold, she sees her parents laughing in a luxurious downtown mansion. The poverty that shaped her whole life was an act they staged.

She was truly dead, and they had never been poor at all.