You lucky son of a...

You stared at the small crumpled piece of paper almost as if the letters and numbers on it were lying to you. A lottery ticket. Two dollars you'd assumed you'd basically wasted. You were so sure nothing would come from the purchase that you didn't even spend the extra dollar for the double play option. Surely you'd misread a number or two? No, the numbers matched exactly. Was the date on it wrong? No, it was for today's drawing. This had to be a dream. You were about to wake up even more depressed then you already were. You slumped down into your shitty couch. The familiar beam in the middle of the couch pushing into your leg almost painfully grounded your mind a bit. A dream wouldn't be this realistic would it? You shook your head back and forth quickly to reset your mind a little. Ok, you thought to yourself, what is happening? Your mind wanders into the recent past.

Your fiancé had left you over four months ago. The only woman you'd ever dated and had a serious committed relationship with just up and vanished before you got to see her walking down an aisle towards you. Not only that, but she ghosted you. Leaving you with no clue why she left. One day you left for work, giving her a kiss on the way out the door. You told her you loved her and she half smiled back at you, but you'd reasoned she was distracted with her phone to say she loved you back. Only to return after work that very same day to a mostly empty apartment and no fiancé. Only a note that simply had the word "SORRY" written on it in her familiar handwriting. To say you were worried and confused would be an understatement. Your first reaction was to call her, but you found yourself blocked, with the same result when you tried texting. The only clarification you received, if you could call it that, was when you texted her mother, and her mother said your fiancé was no longer your fiancé, and was not willing to speak with you. Any further questions you asked were met with silence.

So that was it then. The end of nearly fifteen years together. The only suspicion you had about why she left was the incoming marriage itself. She had never wanted to get married to anyone. She found the entire institution almost insulting. You didn't disagree either. Why did two people who loved each other need to have a piece of paper that said you were married. Wasn't love enough when you were so committed to each other already? Which is why it surprised you when she was the one to propose. You said yes because that was what you thought she wanted. However, even though she was the one who asked for it, you could tell her enthusiasm waned quickly as the date approached. You had assumed it was due to the stress of planning. So many assumptions you'd made. Didn't matter though, she left, and you were shattered. You figured it was maybe a blessing you hadn't married at that point. You'd always heard horror stories about the divorce process, and knew it was difficult even when both parties were cooperating with each other.

You took a week off of work and practically slept the entire time trying to avoid thinking about it. Going back to work and acting like nothing was wrong for the sake of your job and your customers was like a dagger in the back. Especially since you found your boss, and management overall, to be some of the shittiest people on this planet. The days wore on, and you seemed to only feel worse and worse. In desperation to escape the necessity of a job, you bought a lottery ticket for the first time ever. The idea of winning seemed like pure freedom to you. It made you feel horrible the moment you inserted your card into the reader. You knew the odds of winning were astronomical, and you despaired at the idea of such a thing being your only salvation.

Yet here you were. Sitting on your shitty couch with a painful beam pressing against your leg. This was your life and you were loving every part of it suddenly, even the pain of the couch and the pain of your Ex having left you didn't seem to matter anymore. You just stared at the salvation in your lap. A little piece of paper. What a salvation it was too. Just through sheer luck the amount you won was over one billion dollars for this drawing. Of course you knew you weren't getting that amount of money in the end. Taxes were going to take their chunk, but that still meant you were getting around six hundred million dollars you figured. Heck, for the briefest of moments you could make claim to being a billionaire. You quickly popped into your bank app and looked at what you'd saved up in your savings account. One thousand two hundred twenty three dollars and fifteen cents. You laughed out loud at how quickly this lottery ticket put it in perspective that you were poor as fuck. Luckier then most right now, but still just teetering on bankruptcy if things went poorly for you. A broken leg, a wrecked car, it wouldn't take much to drain your finances.

Shit...what now though you thought to yourself. You quickly looked at your state laws regarding the lottery. You seemed to be destined for this money, as your state was one of the few that would allow you to claim it anonymously. Thank god for that. Some people would find out you figured, but you didn't need whack jobs from around the nation finding out about your money. You suddenly felt very insecure about the situation. You quickly jumped up off the couch and ran over to your door. You checked the deadbolt to make sure it was in place several times, and even slid the chain lock into place for the first time since you rented this apartment. Rushing to each window you checked each of their locks, and then checked them again. You quickly closed all the curtains so no one could see in. Next you rushed to your closet and opened the small safe you'd bought years ago. You opened it with its key and then set the lottery ticket inside. Locking it back up you stared at the little safe for a moment, and then quickly unlocked it again with your key to make sure it could still be opened. Then you locked it once again and put the key into your pocket gripping the key from outside your pocket, as if the key would vanish suddenly if you let it go.

"STOP" you yelled out loud and then looked around sheepishly as if you'd just yelled in a room full of people. "Stop" you whispered to yourself.

"This is happening Wyatt, and you feel paranoid and overwhelmed. That's ok, this is a crazy situation, but you need to stop and relax. No one knows you won except for you. Right now...everything is fine" you say to yourself out loud.

"Alright" you say pacing back and forth "tonight I will research the best way to claim the prize, and write down a plan. Then tomorrow I'll follow that plan" you tell yourself. Nodding your head in agreement with yourself you set yourself into motion. Booting up your computer and googling what to do when you win the lottery you were surprised to find plans already existed for your situation. Printing one off you filled out who you'd be contacting tomorrow. Ray and Schuster would be your first call. A top law firm in your state dealing with financial situations exclusively. You were going to be talking with Ray or Schuster tomorrow, no one else in the firm would be acceptable. One of the partners or nobody. You'd explain your situation and what you wanted, and then they'd guide you through all of it. That was the plan for the most part. The rest would be talking with your bank on what account you'd need set up for this amount of money, or accounts you supposed. Then finally actually calling the number on the ticket to claim the prize with Ray or Schuster on the call.

You looked at the clock on the computer. You were surprised how late it was, but you had read through a ton of plans people had come up with. Rubbing your eyes you realized you were very tired. One last thing. You texted your shitty boss and notified them that today was your last day and you were not coming in tomorrow. Then you set your phone to silent, plopped into your bed, pulled a cover over you, closed your eyes, and waited two hours for sleep to finally take hold of you. No dreams came to you that night, and your eyes cracked open with the dawn of the sun. The day had come. Today you became a millionaire.