I met his eyes. “You embarrassed me first.”
By five o’clock the house was crowded. Cars lined the street. His mother brought the cake. His brothers showed up with beer. Everyone walked in smiling, asking what smelled so good.
Nothing smelled good.
Because I wasn’t cooking.
Then Ryan’s aunt Linda pushed open the kitchen door, expecting to see trays of food covering every surface. Instead, she saw spotless counters, an empty stove, and a single plate in the sink from my lunch.
The silence that followed spread through the house like a sudden blackout.
And then Ryan’s mother turned to him and asked, “What exactly is going on here?”
For a moment nobody said anything. Then everyone began speaking at once.
“Where’s dinner?”
“Did the food get delivered already?”
“Ryan, what happened?”
His mother, Barbara, looked from the bare kitchen to me and back to her son. “You invited twenty people,” she said sharply. “Don’t tell me there’s no food.”
Ryan forced a laugh that sounded strained. “There’s been a misunderstanding.”
“No,” I said calmly. “There hasn’t.”
The room fell silent again. Ryan shot me a warning look, but I was finished protecting him from the consequences of his own words.
“A few weeks ago,” I said, “Ryan told me, in front of Derek, ‘From now on, buy your own food. Stop living off me.’ So that’s exactly what I did. I bought my own food. I cooked my own meals. I didn’t touch anything he paid for, and I didn’t spend my money feeding the people he invited.”
Derek, standing by the doorway, looked deeply uncomfortable but nodded slightly. “He did say that.”
Barbara’s expression hardened. “Ryan, is that true?”
