I Earn Six Figures, But Can't Even Buy My Own Snacks

I was at the supermarket with my boyfriend.

I wanted to buy a bottle of water, and he told me I was being wasteful.

Then he turned around and filled an entire cart with expensive fruit and imported snacks for his foster sister.

At checkout I grabbed a two-dollar bag of chips out of habit.

Shirley Fox doesn't like those.

Theo Delgado didn't even look up. He just lifted the bag back out.

I put it right back in the cart.

"They're for me."

"Still no. Shirley doesn't like the smell, and last time you ate these it made her sick for days. Besides, they're bad for you."

He said it with complete conviction, and tossed the chips out again.

I looked down at the cart, at the imported gourmet pastries, the mangoes, the beef jerky.

Then I looked at Theo, holding the shopping list, head bent, carefully checking everything off.

And suddenly I had no appetite at all.

I didn't do what I usually did, didn't pout or play the pitiful card to get him to buy it for me.

On the drive home, I stayed silent the whole way.

Theo just assumed I was sulking.

He took a phone call, and then hit the brakes hard and pulled over to the side of the road.

"Shirley's not feeling well. I'm going to check on her."

"You know her health has always been fragile. We have to look after her a little more. Get yourself an Uber home, I'll just take a quick look and come right back."

And with that, Theo left me there in the rain and drove off without a second's hesitation, in the opposite direction from home.

In that moment, all of it suddenly felt pointless.

Maybe it would be better not to get married at all.

...

The sky was dark, and the rain kept coming down harder.

I waved my arm frantically in the rain before I finally managed to flag down a passing taxi.

I was just about to open the door.

Then I remembered the sixty-nine cents left in my phone's payment balance.

My hand froze on the door handle.

When we decided to be together, I'd handed my salary card over to Theo to manage.

But after I gave him that card, I found it harder and harder to get any money.

I make thirty-five thousand a month.

Theo gave me ten dollars a day for living expenses.

After daily meals, what was left wasn't even enough for a bottle of water.

Even normal social expenses meant I had to ask him over and over.

"Are you getting in or not?"

The driver yelled, out of patience.

"Sir, I don't have enough on me, could I maybe"

I wanted to ask if I could leave my bracelet as collateral.

But before I could finish, the driver slammed the door, cursing.

"Get lost! Where'd this broke nobody come from, no money and still trying to take a cab?!"

The car tore past me.

The wheels rolled through a puddle at the curb and splashed muddy water all over me.

My foot slipped, and I went down hard on the ground.

A searing pain shot through my knee, and blood mixed with mud ran down my shin.

I bit down on my bloodless lips, and in the end I still dialed that number I knew by heart.

But all that came through the receiver was the beep, beep of a busy line.

Heh.

I let out a bitter laugh.

How could I have forgotten?

Just because Theo's foster sister Shirley had severe nervous exhaustion and needed quiet.

So Theo had set his phone to do-not-disturb for everyone.

Except, of course, for Shirley.

Whenever something urgent came up, I could never reach him right away.

Including the time my mother was in a car accident.

I'd been away on a business trip then.

When the hospital called me, I was frantic.

I called Theo dozens of times, and not once did he pick up.

In the end I sped the whole way back from the next city, three hundred kilometers out, just to get to the hospital.

By the time I made it back, my mother's surgery was already over.

She was all right, thank God.

Only later did I learn that Theo had spent that whole time at the movies with Shirley.

It was the first time I ever lost my temper with him.

He swore to me, eyes rimmed red, that nothing like that would ever happen again.

But later I figured it out.

His promises were only true in the instant they left his mouth.

In practice, he carried on exactly as before.

I gritted my teeth and dragged myself up off the ground.

Every step sent a sharp ache straight through my knee.

I don't really know how I made it back at all.

By the time I finally limped home through the downpour, three hours had passed.

The living room blazed with light.

Theo was already back.

He sat on the couch in clean, fresh pajamas, gazing into his phone camera with a soft, doting look.

"It gets cold at night, so make sure you tuck the blanket in when you sleep. You catch cold so easily."

His voice was low and gentle, reminding her over and over, unable to stop worrying.

I didn't need to guess who was on the other end. It was his foster sister, Shirley.

Only after he hung up did Theo finally turn around.

His gaze slid from my still-dripping hair all the way down, and stopped on my knee, where blood was still seeping through.

He frowned.

"Didn't I tell you to take an Uber home?"

"How did you get yourself into this state?"

"Why are you just standing there? Go clean up."

"You've gone and dirtied the rug by the door. That's Shirley's favorite, the handwoven wool one."

His brow drew tighter and tighter, his eyes full of regret and displeasure.

In that moment, no rain outside could ever be as cold as my heart.

My boyfriend looked at the gash on my knee and felt nothing.

But over one rug I'd dirtied, he wore the panicked face of a man watching the sky fall.

It was only after a hot shower that the stiffness in my limbs began to ease.

Theo waited outside the door with the first-aid kit.

Seeing how blank my face was, he sighed, pulled me over, and sat me down on the couch.

"Rebecca, can you be any more childish?"

"You'd stoop to hurting yourself just to compete with a kid for attention?"

There was reproach in his voice.

I couldn't really blame him for thinking that way.

I used to believe Theo treated Shirley, a foster sister with no blood tie to him, better than he treated me, his actual girlfriend.

And I had been jealous of her, more than once.

I'd done plenty of childish things too, trying to get Theo to notice me.

But this time, that really wasn't it.

And the "kid" Theo kept talking about was twenty-four this year, a college graduate.

Still, I didn't say a word.

There was no point.

To someone who cares about you, even a slight furrow of your brow puts them on edge.

To someone who doesn't, you could hang yourself and they'd just think you were having fun on a swing.

"All right, I know today upset you, so don't be in a mood anymore."

"Here. A gift for you."

Theo held out a square velvet box, as if trying to make it up to me.

There was a little smugness at the corner of his mouth, like he was certain I'd love it.

I recognized the logo on it at a glance. It belonged to my favorite car brand.

My numb heart gave an uncontrollable little jump.

Not long ago, I'd suggested we trade in for a new car.

The one I drove now was almost ten years old, and a lot of the parts were wearing out.

Back then, Theo had turned me down without a second thought.

"Why change it? The car still runs fine, doesn't it?"

I'd been a little disappointed, but I let it drop.

I held my breath and lifted the lid.

But there were no car keys inside, nothing like what I'd been picturing.

Just a small acrylic keychain stamped with the same brand's logo, lying there.

"You said you liked this brand last time. There's no car, but a keychain's nice too, right? You can keep it on you every day."

Theo reached out, ready to pull me in the way he always had.

It had always gone like this before.

The smallest gesture from Theo and I'd soften, let it go.

But this time, I suddenly didn't want to.

I was tired. I didn't want to keep talking myself back into it.

I looked at that tiny keychain, and I laughed.

"Funny. I didn't know this brand sold the keychains separately."

Theo's face went cold.

"I know today upset you, but do you have to count every little thing like this?"

"I've told you so many times. I've always thought of Shirley as my own little sister. She's not well, so it's only right that we give a little more to her. Can't you be more reasonable about it?"

"What did I even say? Can't I just ask?"

I held his eyes, steady.

Theo choked on it, started to explain something.

Then the phone rang.

Shirley.

"Why aren't you asleep yet?"

"Can't sleep? Put on some soft music, something soothing. It's okay, I'll stay on with you the whole time"

His voice dropped low on purpose as he turned and walked out to the balcony.

I went back to the bedroom and called the bank, reported my salary card lost on an emergency basis.

When Theo came back, he found me lying with my back to him.

He peeled back the corner of the blanket and lay down beside me.

He eased closer, trying to slip an arm around me from behind.

Without a word, without any sign of it, I shifted toward the edge of the bed.

He stared at my back for a long moment, then let out a soft sigh and turned away.

I didn't sleep all night.

When I woke the next morning, Theo was already out of the room.

Two takeout boxes sat on the table.

One seafood wonton soup, one bowl of plain rice porridge.

Without thinking, I picked up a spoon and reached for the seafood wonton soup, the one closest to me.

The spoon was almost in the bowl when a hand slapped it away, hard.

"That one's yours."

Theo pointed at the rice porridge.

"I got this specially for you. Even had them put extra scallions in it."

He took the box out of my hand, set the lid back on carefully, and tucked it into an insulated bag.

Only then did it sink in. The seafood wonton soup was for Shirley.

"I don't eat century egg."

Theo frowned, plainly annoyed.

"Shirley's sick. You're going to fight her over a single breakfast?"

"Rebecca, what is it with you and food? Like you never saw a meal in your last life?"

I didn't say anything else.

I set the spoon down without a word and went back to the bedroom to change.

Maybe because I seemed so low, Theo actually offered to drive me to work, something he never did.

I'd asked him to drive me plenty of times before.

He'd always turned me down, said it wasn't convenient because he had to pick up and drop off Shirley.

I opened the passenger door, and the motion of getting in stalled.

Throw pillow, thin blanket, sunglasses, water bottle, snacks

The little passenger seat was buried under things that belonged to Shirley.

I shut the door.

"Never mind. It's too crammed. I'll just take an Uber."

My car had gone in for servicing only yesterday.

Theo blinked, caught off guard.

"What's gotten into you? Don't you usually beg me shamelessly to drive you?"

His eyes landed on the things piled in the passenger seat, and Theo's expression shifted slightly.

"Don't read into it. Shirley's not well, so naturally I packed a little extra for her, just in case."

I nodded. "Sure. I'm not reading into it."

Theo opened his mouth like he wanted to explain something more.

But when he saw how flat and unbothered my eyes were, his face went cold.

"Get in or don't. Your choice."

Then the car shot off down the road.

That night, I ran a high fever.

It was probably the rain.

The truth was, I was just like Shirleycatch a chill, and I'd come down with a cold and a fever.

Theo had simply forgotten.

Or maybe, even if he remembered, he just didn't care.

Theo pressed his palm to my forehead to check the temperature.

"You're burning up. We're out of fever meds at home. Hang in there, I'll run down to the pharmacy and get you something."

By then my head was already going foggy.

I nodded vaguely.

The door clattered shut, and I sank into sleep.

By the time the sky brightened, the fever had eased a little.

My head slowly cleared.

I was dying of thirst.

I called out for a long time, and no one answered.

That was when I realized the man who'd gone out to buy my medicine had been gone two whole hours and still wasn't back.

I dragged myself up and went to the kitchen for water.

There was a noise at the door, and Theo walked in empty-handed.

"You're awake? Feeling any better?"

He reached out to feel my forehead, and I stepped away.

Theo froze, his brows knitting together.

I didn't answer his question. I just held out my hand to him.

"Where's my medicine?"

His expression stalled, his eyes flickering twice before he started to explain.

"Right, sowhen I got to the pharmacy, Shirley called me. She, um..."

"She said she was craving the soup dumplings from Sheldon's Deli, so you drove halfway across the city to buy her a midnight snack, and my medicine got left behind."

I finished the sentence for him, my face blank.

Theo's head snapped up, his eyes going wide.

"How do you know that?"

Only after the words were out did he notice the phone still glowing in my hand.

The screen was open to a post Shirley had put up a few minutes earlier.

Thank you to my guardian knight for feeding me!

Want it, get it!

So happy!

The photo: a steaming order of soup dumplings.

Knowing he was in the wrong, Theo came closer.

"You know how it is. Shirley's stomach is bad, she can't go hungry."

"If she gets too hungry, she ends up in the hospital."

I asked him, "And what about me?"

Theo frowned.

"You're different. You're healthy. A fever a little longer or a little shorter doesn't really matter for you. Worst case, you sleep it off."

"Come on, be the bigger person. Don't hold it against someone who's sick."

I gripped the cup, and a bitter laugh almost rose up in me.

A fever high enough to blur my mind didn't count as anything in Theo's eyes.

But Shirley going a little hungry was treated like an emergency.

The double standard really was something.

Theo came up behind me and wrapped his arms around me, his voice going soft.

"See? I wasn't wrong. You're fine, aren't you? I told you you were healthy."

"Tell me what you want to eat, I'll make it for you."

I shook my head. "Don't bother. I don't have an appetite."

Theo watched me without blinking for a long moment, as if checking whether I was still angry.

When he saw how calm my face was, he let out a breath.

"All right. Get some good rest. Just tell me when you feel like eating."

I nodded and went back to the room.

That afternoon, I took the day off work and took an Uber to the bank.

Pulled a number, filled out the forms, reported the card lost, closed the account, and applied for a new one.

The whole process took maybe half an hour.

I tucked the newly issued salary card carefully into my pocket.

In that moment, even my steps felt lighter.

I walked out the bank's front doors, looked up, and immediately saw Theo and Shirley coming out of the mall across the street, arm in arm.

Theo had shopping bags hanging from both hands.

Every logo on them belonged to luxury brands I never even dared to glance at.

Shirley was in head-to-toe couture, made up down to the last strand of hair.

The picture of a wealthy heiress.

And the ring of keys she was toying with caught the sunlight, throwing off that cold metallic glint.

Then she pressed a button, and a white BMW parked at the curb gave two short chirps.

It was the exact model I'd picked out before, the one Theo had refused to let me buy.

"Rebecca? What are you doing here?"

The second he saw me, Theo's hand stopped on the car door, panic flashing across his face.

I didn't answer. I just let my eyes wander over the brand-new car in front of me.

"Nice car."

Theo's expression changed slightly.

"Let me explain."

I shook my head, indifferent.

"No need to explain. Let's break up."

Right then, there was a ding.

Theo had received a text from the bank, notifying him that the salary card had been closed.