CONNOR
Things were never the same after Mom caught us.
It wasn’t just Graham’s life that blew up. All of us were shattered.
Mom filed for divorce immediately, putting Graham out on the street without offering up a penny of her assets.
I tried pleading with her, telling her that it wasn’t his fault, it was mine, I seduced him.
She was done with me, too.
“I’ll pay for the rest of your tuition,” she’d said coldly. “Once you graduate, you’re on your own.”
I could tell she meant it. She’d never looked at me the way she did that day—like I was a snake, something to be feared and despised.
I didn’t come home anymore after that. I finished out the last year of college, spending holiday breaks in my dorm like fucking Harry Potter or something. Christmas, New Year’s, my birthday—all of them went by without a call or a card from Mom.
My Aunt told me that she started seeing a new guy. Last I heard, they were engaged. Mom didn’t invite me around, for obvious reasons.
I left Graham alone, too ashamed of what I’d done to reach out to him. I didn’t know anything about what happened to him after Mom left him. I hoped he was okay. He was a hard worker; I was sure he would land on his feet.
Or at least I hoped, if only to assuage my guilt.
When I graduated, I received a letter from the trust fund attorney informing me that I would not, in fact, be receiving the money my grandparents had allocated for me. Apparently, my mother had contacted them and convinced them to rescind it.
I was furious.
But worse than that, I was resigned.
Because I knew I deserved it.
I’d been stupidly banking on my trust fund, so I hadn’t done much to find a job after college. With nowhere to live and no money to tide me over, I ended up taking a gig waiting tables, something I had never before done in my life and, until now, could not believe I ever would do.
I sucked at it.
“Pick up the pace, Connor!” my manager yelled at me. It was a few months into the gig, and I was still struggling like a newbie. “You’ve got three tables that need refills, and table seven’s food is sitting here getting cold.”
I was dripping sweat in this stifling uniform, trying to balance plates like everyone else seemed to be able to do, but was too scared to carry more than two at a time for fear of dropping everything and making an even bigger fool of myself.
At the end of each night, I went home exhausted with barely any tips, retreating to the cordoned-off section of the living room in the three-bedroom apartment I shared with four roommates.
Even at 2 am, the music was always blaring, and party drugs were passed around like candy.
A year ago, I’d have been partaking more than any of them.
Now I just wanted to sleep and block out the noise so I could get a few hours of sleep before my opening shift the next morning.
I was like a zombie at work the next day. I couldn’t understand how people managed this—working eight hours a day, five days a week, doing physical labor that left you too tired after your shift to do much more than collapse on the couch in front of the TV.
Graham never seemed depleted by it, in the short time I’d known him. I’d thought he was such a hillbilly, having to work with his hands in a blue-collar job. Now I had a new appreciation for the value of a hard day’s work.
By the time I left the restaurant in the midafternoon, I was wiped.
I decided to walk home, even though it was sweltering, because I couldn’t afford an Uber and I still hadn’t worked out how to get a bus pass.
A few blocks in, I passed a large construction site. The sound of jackhammers blared through the fence, and a cloud of dust blew out through the bottom, covering my work pants and shoes with dirt.
Fantastic.
As I walked past an open section of the fence, I paused.
Standing a few feet away, in a neon orange vest, was Graham.
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