Chapter 1 - Five Days Until Rent
Dalia kept arguing from the hallway.
Her voice had changed.
The first few minutes had been angry.
Now it was calculating.
“You don’t understand what she’s doing to me.”
Micah remained behind the partially opened door.
“I understand perfectly.”
“No, you don’t.”
Dalia lowered her voice.
“She promised.”
I felt something cold move through me.
I stood from the couch.
Micah glanced back.
I shook my head once.
He understood.
Not yet.
Dalia continued.
“I planned my entire semester around Vera paying tuition.”
“That was your first mistake.”
“She’s my sister.”
“That doesn’t make her your bank.”
Silence.
Then Dalia laughed.
It was short.
Ugly.
“So that’s what she’s calling herself now?”
Micah didn’t answer.
“The victim?”
My fingers tightened around the edge of the kitchen counter.
Dalia had destroyed my wedding cake.
Thrown champagne across the room.
Humiliated me in front of forty people.
And somehow, three days later, she had already rewritten the story.
Micah’s voice stayed calm.
“You should leave.”
“I’m not leaving until she fixes the tuition.”
“You are leaving.”
“My lease is tied to her.”
“That doesn’t mean she has to pay your rent.”
“She co-signed.”
My stomach dropped slightly.
That part was true.
I had co-signed Dalia’s apartment because her credit was terrible.
At the time, Mom had called it temporary.
Just until Dalia “got on her feet.”
That had been fourteen months ago.
Dalia had never gotten on her feet.
She had simply found more comfortable ways to sit on mine.
“I know how leases work,” Micah said.
“Apparently Vera doesn’t.”
Then she raised her voice.
“Tell her if my landlord comes after me, I’m giving him her number.”
That finally did it.
I walked toward the door.
Micah looked at me.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
He opened it another six inches.
Dalia saw me.
Her face changed immediately.
Not remorse.
Triumph.
“I knew you were in there.”
I folded my arms.
“What do you want?”
She stared at me like the question was insulting.
“My tuition.”
“No.”
“My rent.”
“No.”
“My car is still barely running.”
“No.”
Her lips parted.
Three requests.
Three answers.
All the same.
She looked genuinely stunned.
“You can’t just do this.”
“I already did.”
“You said you’d pay.”
“I said that before you deliberately destroyed part of my wedding reception.”
She rolled her eyes.
“It was a cake.”
Micah’s jaw tightened.
I felt mine relax.
Because suddenly the entire problem was standing in front of me in one sentence.
It was a cake.
The money was just money.
My time was just time.
My boundaries were just drama.
My humiliation was just a mistake.
Everything mattered only when it happened to Dalia.
“You’re right,” I said.
She blinked.
“It was a cake.”
Her shoulders loosened.
Then I continued.
“And the tuition is just tuition.”
Her expression froze.
“The apartment is just an apartment.”
“Vera—”
“And the car is just a car.”
“That’s not the same.”
“It is to me.”
Her face hardened.
“You’re being vindictive.”
“No.”
I looked directly at her.
“I’m being finished.”
She stepped forward.
Micah immediately shifted between us.
Dalia pointed past him.
“You think marrying him means you don’t need us anymore?”
I almost laughed.
“That’s what you think this is about?”
“Mom said you’ve changed.”
There it was.
Mom.
Of course.
“What else did Mom say?”
Dalia’s eyes flickered.
Too quickly.
That tiny movement told me there was more.
I noticed.
So did Micah.
“What did Mom say?” I repeated.
“Nothing.”
“You just said she thinks I’ve changed.”
“She does.”
“Why?”
Dalia grabbed her purse strap.
“Ask her.”
Then she turned.
But before she reached the elevator, she looked back.
“You have four days.”
“For what?”
“My rent.”
I almost smiled.
“No, Dalia.”
I closed the door.
“You have four days.”
The elevator doors opened.
She stared at me.
“To figure out your own life.”
Then I shut the door.
Micah locked it.
Neither of us spoke.
Thirty seconds later, my phone buzzed.
Not Dalia.
My father.
I opened the message.
Vera, call me immediately.
Then another appeared.
It concerns the apartment.
I stared at it.
Micah read over my shoulder.
“What apartment?”
“I don’t know.”
Then Dad sent a photograph.
It was a document.
A lease amendment.
My name appeared at the bottom.
May you like
My signature appeared beneath it.
And I had never seen it before.
