“Over?” I couldn’t imagine what they could possibly fight over after her father’s funeral, but, hey…rich people.
“The reading of his will,” she answered, and that made complete sense. It’s funny what money, or lack thereof, does to people.
“But…baby, was there even anything to leave?” The night we talked until three in the morning, she had told me all about her parents’ financial problems. And, according to common knowledge, life insurances usually didn’t pay out suicides.
I could hear sniffles, but at least she wasn’t balls-out crying. “Talon...” she whispered.
“Baby…”Fuck!I hated not being with her.
“Talon, he…I guess he knew things were going south a while back, and…when I turned eighteen, he opened a living trust of some sort and started depositing money into the account,” she explained, shocking the shit out of me. “I…I don’t know all the legal jumbo of it all, but I guess…I guess since it’s in my name, it’s untouchable in the seizure of all their assets. It’s rightfully my money, and since he hadn’t done anything illegal, and he just couldn’t manage his money, the money in the account is all mine.”
She’s only been legal for a few months, so it couldn’t be that much money, right? “So, for the past few months, he’s been depositing money in an account for you?”
“No,” she breathed out. “He’s been doing it for a while. He just took his name off the account when I turned legal.”
I felt like I was going to throw up.
Kenzlee had money again.
Kenzlee had money and was no longer destitute and needed to live off her uncle’s good graces. And I felt resentful over it. I was so self-absorbed, and so goddamn evil, I couldn’t even be happy for her.
I was pissed.
I asked the one question I really, really didn’t want to know the answer to, but I had to know what I was up against. “How much are we talking, White?” I mean, how much is enough to make her mother start fighting with her?
“Talon…Talon, there’s a little over two million dollars in the account,” she admitted, causing my entire world to shift once again.
Kenzlee had two million dollars.
I’m not sure how wealthy she was before her parents lost everything, but surely two million dollars was enough money to get her foot back in the door, right? She had two fucking million dollars that was going to make college possible for her again. It was going to make her future limitless.
“Talon?”
I shook my head and snapped myself back to our conversation. “Uh, yeah,” I stuttered. “Uhm, and your mom’s upset because…”
“Well, because you’re right,” she replied quietly. “There really wasn’t anything left to leave, and even if there was, insurances don’t pay out on suicides.”
“Well, that’s not your fault,” I pointed out, doing my best to ignore my mental issues.
“No, but…” I could hear her taking a deep breath. “He…he left me a letter, and it was wonderful and horrible all at the same time. He apologized and said that he was always going to take care of me, he just wanted the shame of what he did to die down first. But…” Kenzlee started crying. “Oh, Talon, he wrote that he thought he couldn’t live with the shame of being a loser, so he…” She couldn’t finish. She just started sobbing, and I sat quietly on the phone as she did.
The irony wasn’t lost on me. I was feeling threatened knowing she was left this money, but in reality, she always had this money. Her father had set her up for life, and he had just been biding his time so she could access the money with no drama.
Kenzlee’s never been poor. She was always going to end up with money, and I was the fool who fell for a girl who would always be out of my league.
Fuck. My. Life.
∞∞∞
Kenzlee~
I was sitting at the Lakeside park, watching postcards and advertisement ads coming to life. It was late afternoon and people were walking their dogs and jogging and playing football and all that stuff that people only do in movies.
And me? I was sitting on a bench, scared out of my mind.
My plane had landed around noon, but I had opted to just go home and skip the rest of the school day. The last couple of days had been so emotionally exhausting, it was a wonder I wasn’t sleeping the day away.
I’d never gone through such a cold ordeal in all my life. Kaden’s funeral had been a burial with the viewing and church services and everything. His had been a real mourning, and what one would expect from laying a loved one to rest.
