The $250 Love Test

I max out at $248 a day. My boyfriend asked me for $250. He was only pretending to be broke; the whole thing was a test.

Three months after the first time we met in person, he told me his family had lost everything.

I was so far gone on him that I gave back every dollar he'd ever given me, $100,000 of it, and picked up three jobs so he wouldn't have to ride it out alone.

Then a delivery ran late, a customer screamed at me until I cried, and the comments only I can see finally told me the truth: the bankruptcy was fake, and that exact number was a humiliation his best friend had picked out for me.

One comment went further. It said I'd take the job at that poisonous countertop warehouse for an extra $100 a day, and that I'd have leukemia before I finished my freshman year.

On the other end of the line, Desmond was still asking, wounded: "Baby, could you just lend me $250?" Chapter 1 The other end of the call was all noise, people pulling a fight apart, people swearing over the top of it.

A row of comments scrolled sideways through the air in front of me, the kind only I can see. [The male lead is the worst.

He's sitting in a club drinking champagne, watching his little circle of friends put on a play for him.

All so he can put the side character through it and make her prove she loves him.] [He's trash! He deserves it.

Ten years with his heart locked up after the side character dies, and then the healer female lead finally shows up to fix him.] [I can't.

Is it just me, or is this Phillip Berkeley even worse?] [He knows the side character maxes out at $248 a day and he still told the male lead to ask for $250.

He wants to watch her beg somebody for $2.] [And that number. Holy shit, $250. Two dollars past everything she has, on purpose.

He's calling her an idiot with a dollar sign on it.] My nails dug into my palm. Desmond didn't get an answer out of me, and his voice went small and hurt. "Abby? It's okay.

If you don't have it, if you don't have it…" He couldn't seem to finish. Ever since the Vandermeers went under, every one of his good friends had cut him off.

Every night he said it into my ear: "Abby, you're all I have left…" Who else did he have? What else was he supposed to do?

Since he'd started working, I'd lost count of how many times he'd wrecked something. He said what he brought in every month wasn't enough to cover the damage.

I figured he'd been waited on his whole life and was bound to be clumsy at it, so I protected his pride. However bad it got on my end, I told him not to worry. I'd figure it out.

Except I'm an orphan whose tuition is federal loans. What was I going to figure out? I'd swallowed enough shame by then to borrow money from my high school teacher.

I wiped my face, hung up, and called him back on video. The first time, he killed the call and texted that it wasn't a good moment.

The second time he answered, but he took it as audio only, his camera off and mine still on.

When he saw my face soaked, he stopped short. "Abby, don't worry, I'm not—" I cut him off. "Turn your camera on." "Abby, I—" My teacher's disappointed face was still right there in front of me, and the customer who'd screamed about the late delivery was still in my ears.

I was crying so hard it came out as a scream. "I said turn your camera on!" Click. The call dropped, and when I called back nobody picked up. [LMAO the piece of trash is panicking.

He's scrambling into the back kitchen of the club right now to set up the scene.] Something in my head snapped too. It was the middle of a brutal summer and I was shaking with cold.

By the time I came back to myself I had my helmet on and I was standing inside the club the comments had named. The woman at the front desk saw the delivery bag on my back.

Chapter 2 She frowned. She had half a sentence out, something about putting me back on the sidewalk, and then her face broke into a smile.

She shoved me aside and hurried toward the men coming out of the elevator. "Mr. Vandermeer, leaving so early tonight? Was something not to your liking?" I turned my head slowly.

A group of rich kids came out, eyes forward, chins up, not one of them looking left or right.

The one in front was the person I knew best in the world and had never seen before in my life. It was Desmond. His expression was thunderous and he was busy with his phone.

He didn't spare a glance for anyone, let alone an answer. One of the guys behind him sighed and explained it to her instead. "It's nothing.

Desmond's girlfriend stopped picking up all of a sudden, and he's worried." I closed my hand around the phone buzzing in my pocket and watched the envy come over her face. "Aw, Mr.

Vandermeer is so good to his girlfriend.

Whoever she is, she must be the luckiest girl alive…" I stood there and watched him walk out the door, and I didn't notice I was crying until the tears reached my mouth and I tasted them.

She was right. I never expected him to be this good to me either. Good enough to want to watch me grovel to somebody for $2.

Good enough to call me an idiot with a dollar sign on it. Lucky? God. So, so lucky.

I got myself out of the club in a fog, and my phone buzzed again. 10 missed video calls, 29 missed voice calls, and a stack of messages. [Abby, what's wrong?] [Please pick up.

I'm really worried about you…] [ABIGAIL FERRARO. PICK UP.] They kept coming, one after another after another, and every one of them looked like proof that Desmond loved me.

It was the same as the third month after we met online. That was when the woman who raised me in that group home, the one I'd called Mom since I was small, died.

Desmond was afraid I couldn't take it by myself.

He dropped everything and drove out to meet me in person for the first time, covered every cost, and stayed with me at the funeral home for three days straight.

In the viewing room he held me and said it over and over: "Abby, don't be scared. You still have me…" I looked up at the stars through my tears. What do I do, Mom.

You died too early. You never got the chance to teach me this one.

The day Desmond, who said he'd love me in your place, humiliates me like this and puts me through a test to see if I'm worth it, what am I supposed to do?

When I got back to the apartment, Desmond was sitting on the couch in the living room with a face like a storm. "Where were you?

Why didn't you answer my calls?" His nerves must have been shot, because it came out fast and hard. "What could you possibly not tell me about?

Do you know how worried I was?" I didn't say anything. "Abigail Ferraro, you—" He turned to let me have it, and then his eyes landed on my knees. "How did you get hurt?" I looked down before I registered it.

Both knees of my pants were scraped open, and the dark red had soaked through the pale fabric where anyone could see it. That was when I remembered.

After the interview at the countertop warehouse I'd been racing the clock, and I went down at an intersection with the bike on top of me.

I'd pushed through the pain the whole rest of the way and the order still ran late.

I waved it off. "It's nothing, it doesn't hurt." He got the first aid kit, pulled me down onto the couch, and cleaned the wound, working the fabric loose from the scabbing a little at a time. "Silly.

Even if it doesn't hurt you, it hurts me, okay?" He was still angry, and he still remembered to blow on the raw skin. "There you go, that's my good girl.

All better, all better…" That was exactly how Mom used to do it. Then Mom was gone, and somewhere along the way he'd learned it.

I froze for a second, and the tears came down like something had given way. Desmond fumbled to wipe my face, then pulled me in hard and held me and hushed me.

Chapter 3 "Abby, what happened? Whatever it is, don't sit on it.

Tell me, okay?" I couldn't hold it anymore, and it all came out of me into his shirt while I cried. "Des, I went down on the bike and it hurt so bad, and the order was still late and the guy screamed at me." "And that warehouse job I interviewed for today, it pays $100 more a day, but the second I walked in my head went light and my throat started burning…" I didn't tell him that none of it hurt the way seeing him at that club had. "Abby, this is on me.

I'm useless." Something in his eyes twisted. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." There was a catch in his voice too. He sounded so sad. Like he really loved me. Like he was really sorry.

So I took hold of his shirt and looked straight up at him without blinking. "Des. Is there anything you're keeping from me?" Who doesn't make mistakes when they're young, I thought.

As long as he said it, as long as he was willing to admit it, I would forgive him. But the air stayed quiet, and his eyes slid off mine without him deciding to do it.

After a beat he looked back at me and gave his head a small shake. "Silly. Of course not." I closed my eyes. The moment the tears came loose, I let go of his shirt.

That night I didn't say anything else, and he never asked again why I hadn't picked up. By the time Desmond got up the next morning, I had my things packed.

I never let myself buy anything, so one suitcase held all of it.

He was in the middle of a yawn when he saw the suitcase and stopped where he stood. "Abby, what is this?" I was busy calling a car on Uber and didn't look up. "Rent's due tomorrow.

We're in bad enough shape as it is, so we should move back into the dorms and stop paying for this place." I'd used my jobs as an excuse to drag him out here into an apartment.

The truth was I was afraid my classmates and roommates would see how far he'd fallen and laugh at him. Turns out I was the fool everyone was laughing at.

He blinked. "We have income. Why do we have to move back?" "Abby, are you unhappy about something?

Can you tell me why?" My hands stopped and I looked up at him. "The income's long gone into what you owe, didn't you know?

And to cover it I've borrowed a lot of money lately." "Yesterday you asked me for $250.

I max out at $248 a day, and there wasn't one person left who'd lend me the other $2." I let out a long breath. "So there's no rent money.

You should pack up and move back too." The car was close. I took the suitcase and headed for the door.

Desmond caught my hand, and there was something pleading in his eyes. "Abby, let's not move, okay? I can go borrow—" Borrow, or perform?

I gave him a smile with an edge on it. "No need. The dorm is fine, Desmond Vandermeer." Half a year together, and it was the first time I'd used his full name.

He went still, and his hand came open on its own. I took my suitcase straight out to the car and I didn't look back.

I got out in front of the dorm building, and somebody stopped me before I made it inside with the suitcase. "Hey. Need a hand?" His eyes crinkled up when he smiled.

He looked warm, and harmless. I blinked at him, thanked him, and shook my head. "I'm good." I was barely past his shoulder when the comments flooded in. [Wait, wait, wait.

What is Phillip Berkeley, that piece of trash, doing here? And he runs into the side character?] [This trash plays such a gentleman.

Where was all this when he was telling the male lead to fake being broke?] Phillip Berkeley? Chapter 4 My feet stopped.

Half a year together, and Desmond had never let me meet his friends. He said he was afraid they'd be a bad influence on me.

Later, when he was playing broke and telling me every friend he had was gone, I asked him about one of them. "What about the one you always talk about, Phillip, the one you grew up with?" His face flickered, and then he laughed. "He ran the fastest…" So that was him.

But how could he not know who I was? When he was pushing Desmond to ask me for $250, wasn't he standing right there next to him? So was this another round of their test? I frowned.

I was about to turn around and ask them whether they were ever going to be done, and then I saw the comments. [Him and Desmond really are brothers.

Same taste in girls, down to the type.] [LMAO of course it's you, Phillip. Only you would try to steal Desmond's girl.] [The guy is a jealous freak, though.

Wouldn't show them a single picture of the side character, took his video calls where nobody could see.] [LMAO Desmond would never in a million years see this coming.

He hid her so hard that Phillip is out here going full peacock for his own brother's girlfriend, LMAO…] I laughed too. Oh. So he really doesn't know who I am.

I turned and called after him. "Hey, sorry, I'm not wearing my glasses today.

I couldn't see your face from back there…" I let my doe eyes crinkle into crescents and looked up at him with the sweet, innocent face Desmond loved best. "If I said I do need a hand now… would it be too late?" The