Chương 4
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because if I start explaining every time she changes the story, I’ll spend the rest of my life following her version of me.”
Emily squeezed my shoulder.
For the first time in days, I felt certain about something.
Not that I was right.
Not that everything would work out.
Only that I could not keep living the same way.
That evening, I opened the rental account again.
Bethany’s apartment information appeared on the screen.
The lease renewal notice sat unopened.
Her name.
My name.
Two signatures from a year earlier.
Two people promising responsibility.
Only one of us had treated that promise seriously.
My hand rested on the mouse.
This decision felt different from the tuition.
The tuition was about support.
The lease was about consequences.
I clicked the option to remove my automatic payment authorization.
The confirmation appeared.
I stared at it.
Then my phone rang.
Bethany.
I answered before I could stop myself.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then she whispered, “What did you do?”
“What did you do?”
Bethany’s voice was quieter than I expected.
That worried me more than yelling would have.
I sat back in my chair and looked at the computer screen.
The confirmation message was still open.
A small gray box telling me that the change had been processed.
Something so simple.
Something that could change another person’s entire week.
“I removed my payment authorization,” I said.
There was silence.
Then a sharp breath.
“You canceled my rent?”
“No.”
“You know that’s basically the same thing.”
“No, Bethany.”
I kept my voice steady.
“It means I’m not responsible for paying your rent anymore.”
Her breathing became faster.
“You can’t do that.”
“I signed the lease to help you get approved.”
“You signed it because you said you believed in me.”
The sentence stopped me for a moment.
Because she was right.
I had said that.
I remembered standing outside the apartment building with her the day she got the keys.
She had been so excited.
She carried a small cardboard box with a coffee maker and two mugs because she said every adult apartment needed “real coffee and not whatever comes out of a machine.”
She had hugged me.
“I’m going to prove everyone wrong,” she said.
I believed her.
Maybe that was the part that hurt most.
Not that she failed.
That I kept believing long after the evidence changed.
“I did believe in you,” I said.
“Then why are you doing this?”
“Because believing in someone doesn’t mean protecting them from every consequence.”
She laughed softly.
A bitter sound.
“You sound like Dad.”
The comparison landed harder than she probably intended.
I hated that.
Because I had spent years trying not to become him.
My father had always been practical.
Cold when things got emotional.
He believed problems were solved by removing feelings from the equation.
I did not want to be that person.
“I’m not Dad,” I said.
“Really?”
Her voice cracked.
“Because right now you’re standing there with money and deciding whether I deserve help.”
I rubbed my forehead.
“This isn’t about whether you deserve help.”
“Then what is it about?”
I looked at the wedding photo on my desk.
Emily and I were smiling.
A picture taken before everything changed.
“It’s about the fact that every time something happens, everyone asks what happens to you.”
Bethany did not answer.
“It’s never what happens to me.”
The silence that followed was heavier.
For a few seconds, I wondered if she finally understood.
Then she said, “You’re unbelievable.”
The hope disappeared.
“You’re acting like you’re some victim.”
“I’m not.”
“You have everything.”
There it was.
The sentence beneath all the others.
You have everything.
I looked around the apartment.
The furniture we bought secondhand after moving in.
The coffee table with a scratch from when we carried it upstairs.
The stack of unopened mail.
The life that looked easy from far away.
“Bethany,” I said, “you don’t know what it took to build anything I have.”
“And you don’t know what it’s like being me.”
“No.”
My voice softened.
“I don’t.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then she said something that I almost missed.
“I was embarrassed.”
I looked at the phone.
“What?”
“At the wedding.”
Her voice changed.
Less angry.
More tired.
“I saw everyone looking at you.”
I stayed silent.
“I saw Mom crying because she was proud of you.”
A pause.
“I saw Dad telling people how hard you worked.”
The words came slower.
“And I felt like nobody saw me.”
I closed my eyes.
There it was.
Not an excuse.
Not forgiveness.
But the first honest thing she had said.
“You could have told me that.”
She laughed.
“Would you have listened?”
The question bothered me because I did not know the answer.
Maybe I would have.
Maybe I would have immediately tried to solve it.
Maybe I would have offered money.
Maybe I would have done anything except sit with her pain.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
That surprised her.
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
The apartment around me was silent.
“I should have noticed more.”
Another pause.
“But you also destroyed something important to me.”
Her breathing changed.
“I know.”
The words were almost too quiet.
I leaned forward.
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
For the first time since the wedding, I heard something different.
Not anger.
Not accusation.
Shame.
“I was drunk.”
“You were not drunk.”
“I was emotional.”
“Bethany.”
“I know.”
She interrupted quickly.
“I know.”
The repetition sounded like someone trying to stop themselves from saying something worse.
“I just…”
Her voice faded.
I waited.
“I didn’t know how to make people see me.”
I looked down at my hand.
The same hand that had signed checks.
The same hand that had cleaned up problems.
The same hand that had held the cake knife two nights earlier.
“You made everyone look at you,” I said.
She did not respond.
May you like
“But you also made everyone afraid of you.”
A long silence.
