cardiac death

My boyfriend, Ethan, had depression. Therapy and meds were costing us a fortune every month. I was working myself to the bone, picking up every graphic design gig and food delivery order I could find. My friends were worried I was going to burn out.

One scorching afternoon, I snagged a lucrative delivery to a mansion in the hills. I held the eighteen-hundred-dollar sushi platter like it was a newborn baby, handing it over with a respectful nod. Then I looked up and saw Ethan standing in the doorway, staring at me in stunned silence. He was supposed to be at his therapy session.

"Shouldn't you be at the hospital, Ethan?" My left hand, still gripping the empty platter, started to ache. Even though it was a hundred degrees outside, I felt like I'd been plunged into an ice bath. I’d only ever seen places like this on TV.

"I... uh... Look, Chloe, let me explain. Dr. Lewis had a last-minute thing..." he stammered, his eyes darting towards the opulent interior. "I was just... visiting a friend."

He reached for my sleeve, his usual apologetic gesture. It normally worked, but not this time. I slapped his hand away. I couldn’t even name the brand on his designer shirt, but it suddenly fit him – this rich-kid persona – a lot better than his usual thrift-store finds.

I pulled out my phone and checked Dr. Lewis’s schedule at Cedars-Sinai. He still had openings for the afternoon. I didn’t even have the energy to call him out on his lie. Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to sound calm.

“Ethan, having fun?” I asked, my voice trembling. “Pretending to be this broke, depressed guy who can’t even afford a latte… when you’re actually some trust-fund prince who eats eighteen-hundred-dollar meals?” Tears welled up in my eyes.

“You… you treated me like an idiot!" My voice cracked. "Eighteen hundred dollars! That’s like, six thousand deliveries! Two months of work for me…"

The irony was, the only app I hadn't closed on my phone was the message I'd sent Ethan just thirty minutes ago. I’d told him I was making his favorite, potato soup, for dinner tonight. I was feeling flush because the mansion guy had given me a hundred-dollar tip. A tip that, I now realized, Ethan had paid to himself.

He used to whisper to me at night, telling me I was the only person whose love he didn't question. That even his parents' love wasn’t as pure as mine. I’d lapped it up, feeling lucky to have found genuine affection in a world where it seemed so rare. Now, looking back, who would be stupid enough to risk heatstroke for a five-dollar bonus, just to scrape together his therapy bills?

“I haven’t slept more than five hours a night in weeks,” I choked out. “Dreaming that you'd get better. You know that, right?”

A flicker of something – guilt, maybe? – crossed his face. He nodded miserably. He’d seen me struggle in our cramped studio apartment, a thirty-minute walk from the nearest subway station. He'd seen me pinching pennies, working myself to exhaustion to pay for his imaginary...