I won the lottery on a Tuesday that felt aggressively ordinary. The sky was the color of old tin, the grocery store parking lot smelled like hot asphalt and spilled soda, and my car was cluttered with unopened mail and reusable bags I never remembered to bring inside.
Nothing about the day suggested it would become the axis my life would turn on.
I had bought the ticket on impulse, the way you grab gum at the register. A few dollars. A shrug. Something to do while waiting in line. I scratched it in my car with the edge of a key, half-listening to the radio, already thinking about dinner.
The numbers revealed themselves slowly, silver dust collecting on my fingers. I remember blinking, then leaning closer, then freezing completely.
Two million. Five hundred thousand.
I scratched again, harder, like I had somehow imagined it. The numbers did not change. They sat there calmly, indifferently, as if they had always belonged to me.
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