3: 3
She wore an ill-fitting delivery uniform.
Her hair was soaked with sweat, plastered against her pale cheeks.
The polished, put-together woman she used to be was gone. Now she looked worn down, smelling of grease and exhaustion.
Something in me twisted.
"This is what you do now?"
My question froze her. She dropped her head in a rush.
"I, I wanted to make some quick money. Pay off the debt, help out at home..."
"Your husband is a seven-figure executive, and you're out doing this kind of gutter work. Did you ever once think about my face?"
I stared her down, my tone sour.
"Ellie, are you deliberately picking the lowest jobs to look pitiful? Waiting for me to go soft and toss you some charity?"
A violent shudder went through her, and her eyes went red at once.
"I'm not... I just wanted to earn money faster."
She set the delivery bag by the door.
"Tristan, my next order's about to run late. I have to go..."
My face stayed cold.
"You just drop it at the door and leave? That's a lazy way to work. No sense of responsibility at all."
Before she could explain, I tapped the bad review without hesitation.
Her tears broke loose, her voice cracking into a desperate plea.
"Tristan, please..."
"A bad review means a penalty. My whole day of work will be for nothing..."
Watching her grovel like that, a flicker of reluctance crossed my chest.
But I pushed it down fast.
"You chose this road yourself. So you carry all the consequences."
"You're an adult. You should have that much sense."
Ellie looked at my cold face and couldn't get out another word of pleading.
She stood at the door in silence, rigid for a long time.
At last she slowly crouched down, covered her face, and cried without a sound.
That afternoon, the delivery station fired her outright.
I was in a foul mood.
That night I made plans with a few friends to drink at a bar.
Neon flickered in the private room. I threw back one glass after another, but there was a boulder sitting on my chest.
Then a familiar figure slipped past the doorway.
Ellie was bent forward, smiling to a customer as she pushed the beer.
She saw our table and her eyes darted away.
On instinct she quickened her steps, trying to circle around us.
My friends started jeering.
"Well now, Mr. Simmons, your own wife serving you the drinks. That's some serious face right there!"
Something jammed up in my chest, and a strange irritation surged up with it.
I grabbed her wrist, my grip hard.
"Where are you running to?"
I lifted my eyes and held on her, my voice ice-cold.
"You push at every other table, but you take the long way around ours?"
"Playing favorites with customers. Is that how you do your job?"
Ellie went ghost-white, so mortified her whole body stiffened.
"Want to move the drinks?"
I jerked my chin.
"Simple. Prove the beer's good."
Everyone at the table started egging her on.
Ellie bit down hard on her lip, humiliation flooding her eyes.
But all she could do was silently pick up the bottle, tip her head back, and drink it down in small mouthfuls.
One bottle, two, three...
Her face grew whiter and whiter.
By the time the fourth bottle hit bottom, she clutched her chest and dropped.
A mouthful of bright red blood came straight up.
Something clenched shut in my chest.
"Kills the mood."
I dropped the two cold words, pulled two hundred in cash from my wallet, and tossed it on the floor.
"Tip."
I didn't look at the wreck of her again. I left with my friends.
But everything inside me was a mess, jammed up in a way I couldn't name.
I told myself over and over: this was her own choice.
Nothing to do with me.
Deep in the night, my phone went off suddenly.
It was the hospital. Her mother was in critical condition.
When I rushed over, I found Ellie reeking of alcohol, slumped on the long bench in the hallway.
There was still an unwiped crust of blood at the corner of her mouth.
The relatives there looked at her, their eyes full of blame and contempt.
"What a disgrace of a daughter!"
"Her mother's practically dying, and she's out drinking and carrying on!"
"Truly hopeless. No sense of proportion at all!"
Listening to the blame all around her, she looked over at me, numb.
Her eyes were swollen down to slits.
And in that gaze was a thread of desperate pleading.
Something in me trembled, but as if pushed by some unseen hand, I looked away.
Ellie buried her head, her shoulders shaking hard.
There in the cold corner she wrapped her arms around her knees and cried the whole night through.
I didn't leave.
I sat on the plastic chair in the hallway and smoked through an entire pack.
The next morning.
I looked at her bloodshot eyes, and something ached in me.
"About the debt. I can carry some of it for you."
"Pay me back once you've earned the money later. A few days won't matter."
She only looked at me quietly.
Then, after a long while, she suddenly smiled. A complicated smile.
"Thank you."
It was the second time she'd said thank you.
But I didn't feel the rush I'd felt the first time.
The opposite.
There was a bitterness I couldn't put into words.
I didn't bother with her again and went home to catch up on sleep.
But that evening, when she came home, she handed me a stack of cash.
A full ten thousand.
I froze. "Where did you get this money?"
