Chapter 4 - The Ripple Effect
By noon, the fallout from my financial independence had rippled outward through the entire Ashford-Mercer family network, hitting my phone with the destructive force of a localized weather system.
I was in the middle of conducting a physical audit of the frozen food section when my phone began vibrating incessantly in my pocket. I pulled it out to check the screen: three missed calls from Dad, two from Aunt Judith, and a frantic text message from my cousin Renee.
Renee: Leah, what did you say to Aunt Helena? She’s at my house crying on the couch saying you’ve gone psychotic and cut off all their money! Everyone is freaking out!
I ignored the text, locked my inventory scanner into its charging dock, and walked into the breakroom to grab my lunch. Before I could even unwrap my turkey sandwich, the breakroom door swung open.
It wasn't Renee. It wasn't my mother.
It was Colin Price, Mallory’s fiancé.
Colin was wearing his crisp physical therapist polo shirt, his blond hair slightly ruffled, looking like a man who had just been dragged into a domestic warzone against his will. He shut the breakroom door behind him, leaning back against it with a heavy sigh.
"Leah," Colin said, running a hand over his face. "What is going on? Mal is an absolute wreck. She's locked herself in her home office, and your parents are downstairs drinking scotch at two in the afternoon."
I took a slow bite of my sandwich, chewing deliberately before I answered. "Good afternoon, Colin. Did Mallory send you here to negotiate?"
Colin winced, pulling out a chair across from me and sitting down. "No. Well... sort of. Look, Leah, I love Mallory, but she's panicking because her credit score just dropped forty points because of the auto loan default. She didn't even realize the payment was coming out of your account; she genuinely thought her HR department was routing it correctly."
I let out a dry, humorless laugh. "She thought her HR department was paying her personal car loan out of thin air?"
"She didn't think about it at all," Colin admitted honestly, rubbing the back of his neck. "That's kind of the problem, isn't it? For as long as I've known her, whenever something costs money or gets complicated, someone else just... handles it. And she assumed that someone was always going to be you."
"Well, assumptions can be expensive," I said, setting my sandwich down. "Why aren't you paying her car loan, Colin? You're a senior physical therapist at the sports medicine clinic. You make twice what I make at the grocery store."
Colin flushed, looking away. "We... we have a wedding coming up in June, Leah. The venue deposit was twelve thousand dollars, and the caterer required half down..." He trailed off, realization dawning in his own eyes as he connected the dots. "Oh. Wait. The catering deposit we paid last month..."
"Briarwood Catering," I supplied quietly.
Colin stared at me, his eyes widening. "You worked at Briarwood."
"For eight years. Every weekend. While Mallory was in college, while you two were dating, while my parents were pretending I worked in corporate administration." I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the table. "Do you know who captained the catering crew for your engagement party last month, Colin?"
Colin swallowed hard, the color draining from his face. "No."
"I did," I said smoothly. "I carried the hors d'oeuvres tray past your table. I watched you and Mallory toast your future while my feet bled inside my sensible black flats. And the deposit you paid Briarwood? Part of that revenue went straight into paying my rent so I could afford to subsidize your fiancée's lifestyle."
The silence in the breakroom became suffocating. Colin looked as though he wanted to sink right through the linoleum floor.
"Leah... I had no idea," he whispered. "Your parents told us you had a great government job in data compliance."
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"My parents lie because the truth is inconvenient," I said, standing up and grabbing my jacket. "Tell Mallory that if she wants her car insurance reinstated, she can call her insurance company, use her own debit card, and start adulting. The free ride is officially over."
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