“One day when we’re both six feet under, you’re going to get everything,” Bruce added.
The stab of emotions I felt with that single sentence completely overwhelmed me. I looked at both of them dumbfounded.
JJ tutted loudly. “Well, who the hell else are we going to give it to? We don’t have kids. If not you, we’d donate it to charity . . . drag queens in distress, or homeless depressed Chihuahuas or something.”
I managed a slight smile through the tears that were starting to well up. Still . . . “I could never accept that,” I said.
JJ stood up and gestured at me angrily. “See?! There you go again with your ‘woe is me’ attitude.” He started imitating me. “I’m Sera, and I’m not good enough to accept something like that.”
Bruce held up his hand. “JJ. Just calm down.”
“No,” JJ said and stamped his foot. “It kills me. I mean, your wardrobe, for heaven’s sake. You won’t even let me take you shopping! And you take on way, way too much. You work too hard, you look after your sister, your mother . . . who’s looking after you?”
“I look after myself,” I said quickly.
JJ shook his head. “Let us help. You do so much for us and you won’t let us do anything for you.” It looked like JJ had a tear in his eye and my stomach suddenly twisted into knots.
I was in total shock. This conversation had thrown me completely. JJ stormed off to the kitchen and banged a coffee cup around. Bruce got up, too, but then turned and looked at me.
“I know JJ is being a bit harsh,” he said, “but this is something we’ve been talking about for years, and it’s just frustrating you won’t accept our help, especially when we see you suffering in silence. Think about it, Sera. You don’t have to carry on living like this.”
And with that, he walked away, leaving me reeling in shock.Had I just had my first fight with the guys?
60. I Love You, Okay. Whatever.
JJ was right about one thing, accepting help had always been hard for me—especially financial help. It always made me feel inferior. To accept money meant that I would have to accept who I really was. And that would mean having to accept what people had once called me at school, “poor trailer trash.”
I’d been so determined to prove everyone wrong, to prove that I could rise above my situation, no matter how bad it was. But this had come at a terrible cost for me: A hand-to-mouth existence, debt up to my eyeballs, no savings and nothing to call my own.
It was also hard for me to accept that Bruce and JJ wanted to do this for me because they considered me family. My idea of family was so twisted. Families destroy, they don’t help. They break things, they don’t fix them. They are cruel and hurtful and do more harm than good. I was determined to break that cycle with my sister. But, more than that, I felt that I needed to do it on my own, to prove to the world and especially to my father, that he hadn’t broken me.
Going to Ben’s place now felt like the last thing on earth I wanted to do. Knowing Ben, he would know something was up the second I walked through the door—which, of course, he did.
“What’s wrong?” he asked after we got into his apartment. He’d come back with a bag full of chocolates, which I’d started digging into the second he handed it to me. I barely tasted anything as I unwrapped two bars at once, taking bites out of both at the same time.
“Have the chocolates done something to offend you?” Ben said with a slight smile. I shook my head.
“I think I just had a fight with JJ and Bruce.”Mars Bar smashed. Kit-Kat gone. Next?
“Really?” He sounded surprised. So was I. I was more than surprised. I was downright floored.
“First fight we’ve ever had,” I said and stopped eating. I felt sick—too much, too fast.
“What was it about?” he asked, leaning in and wiping a smudge of chocolate off my face.
I scoffed and rolled my eyes. “They said I don’t accept any help from them, financially.” What had JJ said that had caused that stab in my stomach? “That I feel like I’m not good enough, or deserve their help. That I take on too much.”
“They’re right.”
“What?”
“You do take on too much. I’ve seen how you work.”
“Work?” Suddenly I felt attacked.
“You work every night at the restaurant and I’ve seen what you do at work. You often do other people’s work and are often the first to arrive and last to leave.” Ben slid into the seat next to me. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s an admirable quality. But it’s too much. And it’s not just work that you don’t accept help with.”
“What?” I asked.
