She Left When I Was Broke, Regretted When I Was King

CHAPTER 2: Love on Sale

Ethan's POV

The question hung in the air like poison gas. Aren't you supposed to be working?

My mouth opened. Closed. It opened again. No sound came out at first, just a strange choking noise that didn't sound human.

"I took the night off." The words scraped out of my throat, raw and broken. "For you. I took the whole night off for you."

Lena's hand dropped. She stood there in her half-buttoned shirt, mascara smudged at the corners of her eyes, looking at me like I was the one who'd done something wrong.

"You should have called first," she said. Her voice had that edge to it, the one she used with annoying customers at her retail job. "You can't just show up unannounced, Ethan. That's not okay."

"I have a key." I held it up, my hand shaking so badly the metal jingled. "You gave me a key. You said mi casa es su casa."

Michael laughed. Actually laughed. He stood up from the couch, stretching like he'd just woken from a pleasant nap, not like he'd been caught destroying my entire world. He grabbed his shirt from the floor, a designer thing with a label I couldn't pronounce, probably worth more than my monthly salary.

"Oh man," he said, buttoning it slowly. "This is awkward."

"Awkward?" The word exploded out of me. "That's what you're going with? Awkward?"

"What else would you call it?" He shrugged, that infuriating smirk playing at his lips. The same one he'd worn when he got accepted to Yale while I'd scraped into community college. When he bought his first BMW while I rode the bus. When Mom and Dad, our parents, had always, always chosen him.

I looked at Lena. Really looked at her. Searching for something. Guilt. Shame. Regret. Anything that said the woman I loved was still in there somewhere.

"I've been working double shifts for three months." My voice cracked but I pushed through it. "Every day. Sometimes sixteen hours. My hands." I held them up, palms out, showing the blisters, the split skin, the calluses that had formed and torn and formed again. "Look at them."

She glanced away.

"I skipped meals, Lena. Breakfast, lunch, sometimes both. I lost fifteen pounds. Fifteen. My jeans don't fit anymore. I've been washing the same three shirts in your sink because I couldn't afford the laundromat." The words kept coming, faster now, a dam breaking. "I paid your rent. Twice. November and January. Eight hundred dollars total. Money I didn't have. Money I needed."

"I said I'd pay you back," she muttered.

"When?" I stepped forward. The purse lay between us on the floor, a beautiful, expensive reminder of my stupidity. "When, Lena? Because you never mentioned it again. Not once."

"Jesus, Ethan." She crossed her arms. "Is that what this is about? Money? You're keeping score?"

"No." My chest hurts. Everything hurts. "It's not about the money. It's about what I gave up for you. What I sacrificed."

"Nobody asked you to do any of that." Her voice turned sharp, cold. "I never asked you to starve yourself or work yourself to death. You chose that. That's on you."

Michael laughed again, softer this time, like he was watching a comedy show. "She's right, bro. Nobody forced you."

"Shut up." I turned on him. "You don't get to talk. You're my brother."

"Adoptive brother," he corrected, examining his fingernails. "Let's be accurate here."

The word hit like a slap. Adoptive. Like it mattered. Like the fifteen years we'd spent under the same roof, sharing the same parents, the same last name, the same life, meant nothing because we didn't share blood.

"That's your defense?" My hands curled into fists at my sides. "We're not really brothers, so it's okay that you're sleeping with my girlfriend?"

"Ex-girlfriend, technically." Michael pulled his phone from his pocket, checking the screen casually. "I mean, after tonight, that's pretty much a given, right?"

Lena flinched but didn't correct him.

"How long?" I asked her. "How long has this been going on?"

She bit her lip. "Does it matter?"

"Yes. It matters. It matters to me."

"Two months," Michael answered when she didn't. He smiled, showing perfect white teeth that had cost our parents five grand in orthodontia. My teeth were crooked. We couldn't afford braces for both of us. "Started right after New Year's. I came into her store looking for a gift. We got talking. One thing led to another."

Two months. January. Right when I'd given her money for rent because she was "short." Right when she'd started working late more often. Right when she'd stopped texting me back as quickly.

"I helped you move your couch that month," I said to Michael. "Remember? You asked me to help move furniture into your new place. I took a day off work. No pay."

"And I bought you lunch," he said. "Buffalo Wild Wings. Expensive place."

"Twenty dollars." My voice shook. "You bought me twenty dollars worth of wings while you were sleeping with my girlfriend."

"She's not your property, Ethan." Lena's tone shifted to something uglier now. Defensive. Attacking. "Love doesn't mean you own someone. You can't just barge in here with your spare key and act like you have some right to control my life."

"Control?" The word came out as a shout. I couldn't help it. "I'm not trying to control you. I loved you. I love you. I gave you everything I had."

"That's the problem." She stepped over the purse, moving closer. "You gave me everything. I never asked for it. You just kept doing it, kept sacrificing, kept making yourself into this tragic martyr. It was suffocating."

"Suffocating." I repeated the word, testing it. "Taking care of you was suffocating?"

"Yes." Her eyes flashed. "You made me feel guilty all the time. Every time you showed up tired, every time you wore those same ratty clothes, every time you mentioned how hard you were working. It was like you wanted me to feel bad."

"I wanted you to know I loved you."

"Well, congratulations." She gestured at the purse. "You proved it. You bought me something expensive I mentioned once as a joke. Good job, Ethan. You win the boyfriend prize."

Michael wandered over to the purse, picking it up. He turned it over in his hands, examining it like a curious artifact.

"Dior," he said. "Nice taste. Two grand, right? Maybe twenty-five hundred with tax?" He looked at me. "That's what, three months salary for you?"

"Put it down."

"Hey, she doesn't want it." He held it up. "Seems like a waste. Maybe I'll give it to someone who appreciates quality."

"Put. It. Down."

"Make me, little bro." The smirk widened. "Oh wait, you can't. Because you've always been weak. The stray the family picked up out of pity. Mom felt sorry for you, sitting in that group home, looking pathetic. But you never fit in, did you? Never quite measured up."

"Stop it, Michael," Lena said, but there was no force behind it.

"He needs to hear this." Michael stepped closer, the purse dangling from his fingers. "You were never meant to compete with me, Ethan. Not in school, not in life, and definitely not with women. I drive a BMW. You ride the bus. I wear Tom Ford. You wear Walmart clearance. I'm drinking thirty-year scotch while you're counting quarters for ramen."

"I'm a better man than you'll ever be."

He laughed, loud and sharp. "With what? Your integrity? Your work ethic? Nobody cares about that, man. Women don't care about that. They care about results. Success. Money. Things I have and you don't."

I looked at Lena. "Is that true? Is that all you care about?"

She hesitated. For a moment, just one moment, I thought she might say no. Might remember the nights we'd stayed up talking until dawn. The walks in the park. The way she'd held my hand during her grandmother's funeral.

"You're from the same family anyway," she said finally. "Rich or poor, what's the difference? At least Michael can actually take me places without checking his bank account first."

The words hit harder than Michael's fists ever could. Same family. Like our bond, my love, my sacrifice, meant nothing compared to the size of his wallet.

"Give me the purse," I said quietly.

"Oh, now you want it back?" Michael held it away. "Too late. It's been opened. No returns."

"It's mine. I paid for it."

"Consider it payment for all those free lunches I bought you over the years."

Something inside me snapped. Not broke. Snapped. Like a cable pulled too tight, finally giving way.

I moved toward him. "Give it to me."

"Or what?"

My hand reached for the purse. His hand shot out, grabbing my wrist. We stood there, frozen, his fingers digging into my skin where the blisters were worst.

Then Lena reached for it too. "Just let him have it, Michael. It's not worth the fight."

"Everything I do is worth fighting for," Michael said.

His other hand came up fast, closing into a fist. I saw it coming but couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't do anything but watch as his fist flew toward my face.