Chapter 3

That was the joint account Michelle and I had opened together.

We'd agreed to save the money and set up a trust fund for our future children.

How much must she love him, to give away everything that was supposed to be our future?

I couldn't help but sneer.

"Andrew, you're using my money to make it up to me?"

"What, stealing everything wasn't enough? Now you have to come and lord it over me too?"

Andrew's eyes reddened in an instant.

"No, I really did want to make it up to you."

He choked up and couldn't go on.

Michelle drew him into her arms and soothed him softly.

"Okay, okay, why bother explaining to him? He's not worth it."

"Your phantom limb hurt so badly last night you barely slept. You need to go to bed early tonight, be good."

"When you wake up tomorrow, I'll take you to that new sushi place."

They flaunted their affection in front of me without a shred of shame.

The master bedroom door closed, leaving me alone in the empty living room.

The contract on the table was stamped "Smart Prosthetic Limb Customization Agreement."

Over the past three months, I'd visited nearly a hundred manufacturers to find the prosthetic that fit him best.

All told it cost me close to a million dollars — every bit of savings from eight years of work.

I couldn't bring myself to buy myself a two-hundred-dollar shirt.

Yet for him I picked out the most expensive silicone liner, the most flexible joints.

All I wanted was for him to be able to walk normally someday, to start over.

Looking back now, it's one enormous joke.

He never needed to stand up at all.

All he had to do was lie there and play the victim, and he could take my wife, my home.

I slept badly that night, one nightmare after another.

I dreamed of being a child, of my parents divorcing and neither one wanting me, of being dumped out on the street.

I dreamed of my stepbrother cornering me in my room, and when I told my mother, all I got was a hard slap.

"So young and already no good, always telling lies."

Andrew was my only salvation; he'd split his snacks in half and give me some.

"Saul, from now on I've got your back."

People called me a wild orphan with no parents.

He'd charge in and fight them, and come back with a bruised face, still grinning at me.

"See, I won. Nobody's going to dare bully you anymore."

He was the one light of my entire adolescence.

So after his car accident, I wanted to give it everything I had to be good to him.

"Saul, Saul, wake up..."

I opened my eyes, my throat dry and raw, my whole body burning.

Michelle stood holding a thermometer, frowning.

"A hundred and two point seven, you've got a fever and you don't even think to go to the hospital yourself?"

"Do you really have to play the pitiful one and compete with Andrew for attention? Is that fun for you?"

"If Andrew weren't so kind-hearted and worried about you, if he hadn't insisted I come check on you, would you have just let yourself waste away like this?"

So it turned out that even being cared for when I was sick was something Andrew had handed me out of charity.

Looking at the face in front of me, still as beautiful as ever, I couldn't understand how the same person could change beyond all recognition.

In our third year together, our business failed, and we spent the winter huddled under an underpass.

I was running a high fever, with no money for a cab.

Michelle carried me on her back and walked five kilometers through the snow, her feet covered in blisters.

"Saul, once I have money, I'll never let you suffer again."

That pneumonia nearly took my life.

It was Andrew who secretly covered the medical bills.

His eyes red, he pointed at Michelle's face and swore at her.

"Michelle, if you can't give Saul happiness, then I'll take him away."

Back then, we held each other's hands, thinking we'd walk through life together forever.

How did the walking end with only me left alone?

My phone rang; Andrew had sent a confirmed pregnancy test result.

Michelle shot to her feet, cradling her belly, so excited she could barely string words together.

"I'm pregnant. I'm going to be a mom."

She turned to leave, then stopped at the door and turned back with a warning.

"Don't go making trouble for Andrew over this."

"He can't take that kind of shock. If anything happens to him, I won't forgive you."

Counting the days, she must have conceived on our wedding anniversary.

My head throbbed like it was splitting apart, and even breathing hurt.

A relationship between three people really is too crowded. I'll just step aside.