He Said It Was A Test, I Said It Was Over Chapter 04
That night, I came across a post online.
[What do I do about a gold–digger girlfriend?]
[Her parents are divorced, and she keeps using her hospitalized
mother as an excuse to ask me for money. Now I know why her
family fell apart. Her mother was probably just as greedy.]
[I already gave her a bracelet, but that still wasn’t enough. Now she’s
waving around a Photoshopped hospital bill and asking me for two
hundred thousand dollars.]
[Don’t worry, everyone. She failed my test. In two days, I’m going to
give her the reality check she deserves.]
The comments were vicious, and Rhys had liked every one that agreed with him.
I closed the post, unable to believe this was how Rhys had seen me all along.
Every time he handed me the money from one of his part–time
jobs, he had said he hoped my mother would get better soon.
The concern in his eyes had always seemed so sincere. I had never
known that even his kindness had been another test.
By Friday afternoon, all my paperwork was ready. Once her
treatment was arranged, I planned to take her with me when I left for Westmere.
That evening, I followed the address Rhys had sent and arrived at his birthday party.
In previous years, Rhys and I had celebrated at cramped little
restaurants off campus. They weren’t much, but I had been happy.
He had never once brought me anywhere like this lavish hotel ballroom.
The well–dressed guests pointed at me and covered their mouths as they laughed.
“That’s the gold digger?”
“Look at her shoes. She’s washed them so many times they’re
practically bleached. I can’t believe she wore them here. She looks
like she came straight out of some backwoods town.”
Rhys and Tamsin sat beside each other at an elegant dining table, feeding each other bites of fruit.
When I showed no surprise at the luxury around me, Rhys gave me a knowing look.
“I knew you had an angle from the beginning. You played innocent
for so long, but you finally couldn’t resist showing up for the money, could you?”
“Maren, let’s see how sincere you are. Get on your knees and apologize to Tamsin.”
“Ten thousand dollars for every apology.”
The guests‘ stares pierced me from every direction. All I could see
was my mother lying in a hospital bed with a ventilator breathing for her.
Without hesitating, I dropped to my knees and forced out the first apology.
Then the second. Then the third.
Rhys gave a scornful laugh and turned to Tamsin.
“Feel better? This is the only way someone like Maren learns.”
“Don’t do this. I still believe Ren didn’t do it.”
Then my phone vibrated again. The hospital was calling.
I answered, and a nurse spoke from the other end. My mother had died only moments earlier.
I went still, then collapsed onto the floor as all the strength drained from my body.
Rhys tapped his knuckles against the table several times before walking over to me.
“Why’d you stop? Not as easy to earn as you thought?”
He let out a cold laugh.
“I know an easier way.”
He threw a stack of hotel key cards at my feet.
“Everyone here tonight has money. Spend the night with one of them. You’ll earn it faster than you will on your knees.”
The ballroom erupted in laughter. Rhys put an arm around Tamsin and walked away.
A group gathered around him and began betting on whose room I would visit first.
“She’ll go to Rhys’s room first. She’s been clinging to him for three years.”
“With a gold digger like her? I bet she knocks on every door.”
Another wave of laughter swept through the ballroom.
Soon, I was alone with the scattered hotel key cards at my feet.
Missed calls and messages from the hospital kept lighting up my screen.
Rhys, you didn’t need to guess.
Because after tonight, we would never see each other again.