Chapter 2

Chapter 2

My rental sat in the working-class outskirts, where the buses took forever but the rent stayed barely survivable. The window unit wheezed, so I used a box fan unless the heat became dangerous.

Caleb moved in soon after we started dating.

I had not planned to investigate his background. He forced the issue by acting too hard. One day his family lived in a rural county. The next he had found construction work that was exhausting and badly paid.

His shirts came home with tasteful smudges at the hem, like dirt applied by a makeup artist.

He could pretend to be broke, but he could not live broke.

The difference showed in a hundred small decisions.

When a cabinet hinge came loose, he searched for a maintenance number, though our landlord could take a week to answer. I tightened it with the screwdriver in my junk drawer.

When his work boots split at the sole—boots that looked carefully distressed rather than actually worn—he proposed replacing them. I glued them. He watched me clamp the sole beneath two cookbooks as if I had invented repair.

He also had no instinct for the price of anything. He guessed the weekly grocery total at three times the actual amount, then looked relieved when I corrected him. A real broke man would have known what eggs cost before he learned my birthday.

When the body-wash pump stopped working, he threw out the bottle. I rescued it, added water, and got four more showers from it. He tossed grocery bags; I saved them for trash liners. He poured away the water I kept in a bucket for cleaning.

“It was dirty,” he said, honestly confused.

Then we passed a cart selling mini corn dogs.

He read the sign aloud: “four dollars each, and two for seven dollars. That means you save a dollar, babe.”

He looked proud of the arithmetic.

I thought this trust-fund prince needed to spend less time on TikTok. Frozen ones cost less than fifty cents apiece in bulk.

“Why waste the money?” I said. “I’ll make them at home. Cleaner oil.”

“You can do that?”

“I used to sell breakfast burritos near the college district. Students lined up for them.”

I gave him my hand. He squeezed it. “Make those for me too. I always wanted one, but I was saving money.”

He gazed into the sunset with manufactured sadness.

I wondered why wealthy people believed they had the right to play with a poor woman’s feelings.

Then I looked at his profile and decided it did not matter.

I had no true love to steal.

——

I worked weekends too, and Caleb required an unreasonable amount of attention.

At night, the fan rattled, and Caleb’s hand found my waist.

“Can I?” he murmured.

I considered the heat, his face, and the fact that I had an early shift. Then I let him.

“Yes. Just don’t make me do the work.”

Afterward, he asked, “Shower?”

“Yes. Carry me.”

He carried me into the shower and rinsed the sweat from my skin. I fell asleep against his shoulder before he put me back in bed.

Sometime after midnight, I woke to the glow of his phone.

He was messaging Julian Cross.

Julian had reserved a private track that Saturday. A Mercedes-AMG and a Ferrari were waiting. Caleb declined because he had discount movie tickets with me.

Julian replied:

This kind of woman is fine for fun.

Once she learns you’re rich, she’ll attach herself to you.

Let me test her.

Show her a little money and she’ll crawl.

The screen stayed bright between Caleb’s hands. I could have moved, forced him to notice I was awake, and demanded the truth then. Instead I watched his thumb hover over the keyboard.

Caleb waited a long time.

Then he typed, Okay.

I closed my eyes again.

——

Rich people liked to put poor people’s character on trial.

We were expected to prove that hunger had not made us greedy, that rent had not made us practical, and that hardship had somehow polished us into saints.

Society holds poor people to a higher moral standard. A wealthy boyfriend can ask, Would you love me if I had nothing?

But if the poor girlfriend says, Prove you love me more than your money by giving it all to me, everyone calls her insane.

Same logic. Very different verdict.

——

Fortunately, I was not a morally spotless poor woman.

Otherwise I might have leaped out of bed, demanded respect, and lost access to Caleb’s excellent body.

So I went back to sleep.