" It's our lives" I say into the dark. "We should get to choose what we do with them."
I hear her sigh, and she says "Yeah, but here's the thing. My mom grew up really poor. Like, her parents almost gave her away to another family. That kind of poor. And now I have all this opportunity, so of course she wants me to use it to become like, financially secure. Okay, open your eyes a sec."
"Wow." I open my eyes.
"Right? How do you go against that without feeling guilty?"
She snaps the palette shut, takes the wrapping off the primer, and begins applying it to my lashes.
"Do you think I'm being a spoiled little rich girl? Like, First World Problems, and all that?"
I think about kids who've lost entire families to war and famine. Kids who don't know where their next meal is coming from. Willow's own mom. Even Dela, whose mom is dead.
"Um. I guess?" I say. On the other hard, that doesn't make her problems any less real, and that's what I tell her as she brushes on my mascara. "

― Misa Sugiura , Love & Other Natural Disasters