They Regretted Betraying The Wrong Man

The First Stone

The world didn't pause for Adrian's collapse. The sun rose the next morning, cruel and bright. The city went to work.

Adrian did not.

He sat at his kitchen table, still in his damp suit pants and a worn t-shirt. The silence of the apartment was a physical thing, thick and suffocating. Everywhere he looked, he saw ghosts. The ghost of Lena's laugh on the couch. The ghost of his own stupid hope by the coffee machine.

His phone, now silent and dark, sat beside a pile of envelopes he'd pulled from his mailbox.

The first was a formal termination letter from his company. "Violation of company conduct policy."

The second was a notice from his bank. The joint savings account for the "Future Plans" binder the one he'd poured 80% of his paycheck into had been cleared out. A single transaction, yesterday afternoon. Withdrawn by Lena Hart. The balance was zero.

The third was an email printout from his landlord. A courtesy notice. The lease, co-signed by Lena Hart, was being terminated due to "co-signer withdrawal." He had thirty days to vacate.

Three envelopes. Three face-slaps. Delivered without a sound.

He didn't crumple them. He didn't cry. He just lined them up neatly on the table, one after the other, like evidence at a trial where he was the only one accused.

This is the price, the cold voice inside him whispered. The price for being weak. For believing.

The doorbell rang.

He didn't move. It rang again, insistent.

He walked to the door, moving like a machine, and opened it.

It was his older brother, Mark. Dressed for his good job at a marketing firm, holding two cardboard cups of coffee. He looked stressed.

"Hey," Mark said, shoving a cup at him. "You look like hell. Let me in."

Adrian stepped back silently. Mark walked in, his eyes scanning the bare apartment, landing on the black trash bag by the door.

"Okay," Mark sighed, putting his coffee down. "Listen. Mom is having a meltdown. The Harts are pissed. This is a disaster." He ran a hand through his hair. "But it's not unfixable. I talked to a guy."

Adrian just looked at him, his face empty.

"You need to go to Victor," Mark said, his voice lowering like it was a clever plan. "Today. Go to his office. Apologize. Say you were drunk, say you had a panic attack, I don't care. Grovel. Make it good. If he calls off the dogs, you can probably get your job back. Then you beg Lena for forgiveness."

Adrian’s gaze drifted to the window. A pigeon landed on the railing outside.

"Are you listening to me?" Mark’s voice sharpened. "This is your life, Adrian! You worked so hard to get to this point, and you're going to throw it all away over pride? Because she hurt your feelings?"

Adrian slowly turned his head back to his brother. "My feelings," he repeated, the words flat and dead.

"Yes! Your feelings!" Mark threw his hands up. "This is the real world! People make choices! She chose security. Can you blame her? Look at this place!" He gestured around the modest apartment. "Look at you! Victor Hale can give her a palace. What can you give her? More promises?"

Each word was a careful, precise tap on the same bruise. From his own brother.

"Dad always said you were too soft for this city," Mark muttered, shaking his head. "Too much heart. It gets you eaten alive. You need to be practical. Swallow your pride. It's just pride, Adrian."

Just pride. The final insult. As if the thing torn out of his chest was nothing but vanity.

Adrian stood up. He walked to the kitchen counter. He picked up the three envelopes. He came back and held them out to Mark.

Mark took them, confused. He read the first one, then the second. His face paled at the bank notice. He looked up. "She cleaned out the account? Okay okay, that's bad. But that's more reason to fix this! You need that money!"

"And this one?" Adrian asked quietly, pointing to the landlord notice.

Mark read it. His jaw tightened. "So you find a cheaper place. A studio. You rebuild. But you can't rebuild if you're blacklisted in this town! You need to make this right with Victor Hale."

Adrian took the envelopes back. He walked to the small balcony door, opened it, and stepped outside. The city air was warm, smelling of exhaust and distant food.

Mark followed him. "What are you doing? Are you even hearing me?"

Adrian looked down at the street nine floors below. People like ants, scurrying to jobs that owned them. He thought of Victor in his glass tower. Of Lena spending his savings. Of his boss’s cold click on the phone. Of his brother telling him to grovel.

He leaned over the railing, the envelopes in his hand.

"Adrian, for God's sake" Mark started.

Adrian opened his hand.

He didn't throw them. He just let go.

The three white envelopes fluttered, spun, and danced on the updraft. They didn't fall dramatically. They drifted, lazily, down toward the dirty street below.

Mark stared, speechless, as they disappeared from view.

Adrian turned and walked back inside, past his brother. He went to the trash can, the one holding the "Future Plans" binder. He reached in and pulled it out. The cover was smudged with coffee grounds.

He walked past Mark again, back to the balcony.

"Adrian, don't"

Adrian leaned over and let the binder go too. It fell faster, a blue-and-white rectangle tumbling end over end until it hit the roof of a parked delivery truck with a distant, hollow thump.

He came back in and closed the balcony door. He looked at his brother. His face was still calm. A perfect, emotionless mask.

"You're right," Adrian said, his voice soft. "I need to be practical."

Mark blinked, relief flooding his features. "Good. Okay. So you'll go see Victor?"

"No," Adrian said. "I'm leaving."

"Leaving? To where?"

"The city ate me, Mark," Adrian said, stating it as a simple fact, like the weather. "It chewed me up and spit me out. There's nothing left here to rebuild. Just ghosts and people telling me to apologize for being chewed up."

"That's running away!" Mark argued, but the fight was leaving his voice, replaced by a dawning horror. He was looking at Adrian, really looking, and seeing not his emotional younger brother, but a hollowed-out stranger.

"It's not running," Adrian corrected him gently. "It's a tactical retreat. You don't stand in the same spot where you got shot and ask for another bullet."

He walked to the bedroom and pulled a old, worn duffel bag from the top of the closet. He started packing. Not the nice clothes. The old jeans. The sturdy boots. The few things that belonged only to him, from a time before Lena, before the hope of this life.

Mark stood in the doorway, watching. "What are you going to do? Where will you go?"

Adrian zipped the duffel bag shut. He slung it over his shoulder. He walked past his brother, past the empty spaces, to the front door. He picked up the black garbage bag of Lena's things.

He looked back once, at the shell of the apartment, at his brother's stunned face.

"I don't know where I'm going," Adrian said. It was the truth. "But I know I can't stay here and become what you're asking me to become. A man who apologizes for being betrayed."

He opened the door.

"Adrian, wait"

"Tell Mom I'm sorry for the meltdown," Adrian said, his final words flat and definitive. "And tell everyone they won't have to look at the trash anymore. It's taking itself out."

He stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind him with a soft, final click.

He left the black bag of her things leaning against his own door. Let the landlord deal with it.

He walked down the nine flights of stairs, the duffel bag heavy on his shoulder. He didn't look back. He hit the street and turned his face away from the glittering towers of downtown.

He walked into the less shiny part of the city, where the trains ran. He bought a one-way ticket to the coast with the last cash in his wallet. The amount was so small it was almost funny.

As the train pulled out of the station, leaving the skyline behind, Adrian stared out the window. His reflection was still there, pale and empty.

But for the first time in three days, the stone in his gut felt less like an anchor dragging him down, and more like the first stone of something new. Something being built in a deep, dark, silent place.

He didn't know what it was yet. He only knew it was hard. And it was his.