“You’re the one with the dirty mind. Not everyone is like you.” She then sat up and glared at me. “If it weren’t for Dwayne, would I be moving up at work this fast? It’s just one dinner. Are you going to drag this out forever?”
“If it weren’t for your incompetence, do you think I’d have to work this hard in this company?” Her voice rose as she grew more agitated. “If you were more capable, would I have to swallow my pride and humiliate myself in front of others? If you don’t have the ability, that’s one thing. But I didn’t have parents pulling strings for me. I had to earn everything on my own. Do you have any idea how exhausted I am? And you dare to act high and mighty when you don’t even make more than I? I just want to sleep. Stop bothering me.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but her phone rang. She glanced at the screen, then hung up quickly and headed toward the bathroom with the phone in hand.
“Was that Dwayne?” I asked.
“Wrong number,” she muttered before disappearing into the bathroom.
I sat in silence in the living room. Ten minutes later, she came out, and her expression had softened compared to when she was talking to me. When she caught me watching her, she glared at me before hurrying into the bedroom.
This time, I didn’t follow her. Instead, my thoughts drifted back over the years we’d spent together.
I grew up as an orphan and never attended school.
I met Penelope after she finished high school and started working odd jobs. Her family wasn’t well-off. Her mother was sick, and her father was disabled, so they couldn’t afford to send her to college.
After a month of knowing her, I had already fallen for her. I worked up the courage to pursue her, and we got together. Since then, I'd been paying for her tuition and living expenses, using the savings I had built up after years of working. I even helped cover her mother’s medical bills.
Those early days were sweet. She was gentle and affectionate. People at work often envied me, saying I was lucky to have landed a college girl for a girlfriend, that our kids would have a brighter future because of her. I believed it too, so I cherished our relationship all the more.
We had always planned to marry once she graduated. But things started to change during her senior-year internship.