Grocery shopping with my girlfriend.
I wanted to buy a bottle of water, and she said I was being wasteful.
Then she turned around and filled a whole cart with pricey fruit and imported snacks for her foster brother.
At checkout I grabbed a two-dollar bag of beef jerky.
"Sebastian doesn't like that."
Naomi Swanson didn't even look up. She lifted the jerky right back out.
I put it back in the cart.
"It's for me."
"Still no. Sebastian doesn't like the smell of it. Last time you ate that stuff it bothered him for days. Besides, it'll just give you breakouts."
And with that, firm about it, Naomi tossed the jerky out of the cart again.
I looked down at the cart — the imported fruit, the mangoes, the beef jerky for him.
Then I looked at Naomi, head bent over her shopping list, checking everything off so carefully.
And just like that, I wasn't hungry anymore.
I didn't whine or play pitiful the way I usually did, didn't beg her to buy it for me.
The whole drive back, I didn't say a word.
Naomi just figured I was sulking.
Then she took a call, hit the brakes out of nowhere, and pulled over to the curb.
"Sebastian's not feeling well. I'm going to go check on him."
"You know how it is, his health has always been bad, we have to look after him a little more. Grab an Uber home, I'll just take one look and come right back."
And with that, Naomi left me standing in the rain and drove off without a second's hesitation, in the opposite direction from home.
In that one moment, something in it all just went flat for me.
This marriage — maybe it wasn't worth going through with after all.
…
The sky had gone dark, and the rain came down harder and harder.
I waved like crazy in the downpour before I finally managed to flag down a passing cab.
I was about to open the door and get in.
Then I remembered the spare change on my phone account. Sixty-nine cents.
My hand froze on the door handle.
When we decided to be together, I handed my paycheck account over to Naomi to manage.
But after I gave her that card, spending money only got harder.
I make thirty-five thousand a month.
Naomi gave me ten dollars a day to live on.
After what I spent on food, what was left wasn't even enough for a bottle of water.
And anything ordinary, the normal back-and-forth between people, I had to ask her for over and over before she'd agree.
"Are you getting in or not?"
The driver bellowed at me, out of patience.
"Sir, I don't have enough on me, could I maybe—"
I wanted to ask if he'd take my watch as collateral.
But before I could get the rest out, the driver slammed the door, cursing.
"Get lost! Where'd this broke loser come from, no money and still trying to take a cab?!"
The car shot past me.
The wheels tore through a puddle at the curb and sprayed mud all over me.
My foot slid out from under me and I went down hard.
The pain in my knee was blinding, and blood mixed with muddy water ran down my shin.
I bit down on my whitening lip and finally dialed the number I knew by heart.
But all that came back through the phone was the busy tone. Beep. Beep.
Heh.
A bitter laugh slipped out of me.
How could I have forgotten?
All because Naomi's foster brother, Sebastian Delgado, had a bad case of neurasthenia and needed quiet.
So Naomi set her phone to do not disturb for everyone.
Except Sebastian, of course.
Every time something urgent came up, I could never reach her right away.
Including the time my mother was in a car accident.
I'd been away on a business trip.
When the hospital called me, I was frantic.
I called Naomi dozens of times, and no one ever picked up.
In the end I floored it the whole way from the next city, three hundred kilometers out, just to make it to the hospital.
