Chapter 2

Six months slid by, a blur of overtime, hospital visits, and Jessie' s increasingly distant smiles.

Dad was recovering, slowly, but the medical bills kept piling up, Sal' s loan hanging over me like a shadow.

The "house fund" was a forgotten dream, Kyle' s repayment a myth.

Then Jessie dropped the next bombshell, casual as asking for milk.

"Ethan, honey, Kyle needs another fifty thousand."

I choked on my coffee, "Fifty thousand? For what now, Jessie? Did his gold-plated ideas run out of gold?"

She winced, "Don' t be like that, it' s a critical investment, something about servers and expanding his platform, he says it' s the final push."

"The final push to what? Our bankruptcy?"

I was tired, bone-tired, of this endless cycle.

"He says this time it' s guaranteed, massive returns," she pressed, her voice taking on that wheedling tone I' d come to dread.

"Jessie, we don' t have fifty thousand dollars, we don' t even have five hundred after everything."

"Well," she said, avoiding my eyes, "There are ways, you could take out a loan, a high-risk one, maybe?"

My blood ran cold.

"A high-risk loan? Are you serious?"

"Or," she continued, as if I hadn' t spoken, "You could ask your parents, maybe they could mortgage their house, it' s small, but it' s something."

I stared at her, truly seeing her, maybe for the first time.

The audacity, the sheer, unadulterated selfishness of it.

My parents, who had worked their fingers to the bone for that tiny row house, who were already stressed about Dad' s health and the existing bills.

"My parents? You want me to ask my parents to risk their home, the only thing they have, for your brother' s latest fantasy?"

The calm in my voice surprised even me.

"It' s an investment, Ethan," she insisted, "For Kyle' s future, for our future, once he hits it big..."

"Our future?" I cut her off, the dam inside me finally breaking, "Jessie, what about my future? What about my father' s health? What about the sacrifices I' ve made, the double shifts, the deliveries in the rain, while your brother plays entrepreneur with our money?"

"It' s not like that," she said, her eyes narrowing.

"It' s exactly like that! When was the last time you asked about my dad? When was the last time you contributed anything, anything at all, to this 'our future' you keep talking about?"

Her face hardened, "So that' s it then? You don' t support me? You don' t support my family?"

"Support?" I laughed, a harsh, bitter sound, "I' ve bankrolled your family, Jessie, there' s a difference."

"I can' t believe you," she hissed, her voice rising to a shriek, "After everything I' ve done for you, the years I' ve wasted on you!"

"Wasted?" I felt a strange detachment, the anger replaced by a chilling clarity.

"Yes, wasted!" she screamed, "You' re holding me back, you' re not ambitious, you' re content to be a grease monkey your whole life!"

"A grease monkey who paid for your clothes, your dinners, your brother' s pipe dreams," I said, my voice flat.

"I don' t need your money!" she spat, her eyes blazing.

She stormed into the bedroom, I heard a crash, then another.

I followed, my heart sinking.

She was systematically smashing every photo of us, every little trinket I' d ever given her, the cheap ceramic dolphin from our first trip to the shore, the framed concert ticket.

Each smash was a punctuation mark on the end of us.

"Jessie, stop!"

"No!" she whirled around, a shard of glass in her hand from a broken frame, "You don' t love me, you never did, you just wanted someone to control!"

"That' s not true," I said, but the words felt hollow even to me.

"It is true!" she threw the shard down, "I' m done, Ethan, I' m leaving, I can' t do this anymore, I can' t be dragged down by you."

She grabbed her purse, her keys.

"Fine," I said, the fight gone out of me, "But you owe me, Jessie, you and Kyle, you owe me every cent you took."

She just laughed, a cold, ugly sound.

"Get it from Kyle," she sneered, and then she was gone, the door slamming behind her, shaking the cheap apartment walls.

I stood there, amidst the wreckage of our memories, the silence deafening.

For the first time in years, I felt a flicker, not of sadness, but of something else, something like relief.