Suffering for Her Own Blessings

I shoved the leftover gifts at Jacob beside me, muttered some excuse, and yanked Shirley out of the private room.

"Charlene… How do you have this much money now, Lene? Were those all your friends back there? How'd you even know them?"

She kept going, not giving me a second to breathe. "We've been tight since we were kids. You owe me the full story. Did you find your real parents?"

I stopped short and smirked. "Not yet. But I'm getting close."

Shirley and I were raised in the same orphanage since we were kids. I knew she was tied to some kind of trade system. I could hear her talking to it.

The cruel part? I was the only one she could use for these swaps. The only small mercy was that the system capped her at three.

The first one happened when we were 13. Shirley was born with a heart defect, so she swapped hers for mine.

She left the hospital completely cured. Me? I collapsed from acute heart failure and spent a week in intensive care. Even now, I haven't fully bounced back.

The second time came at 18. After three years of ditching class, chain-smoking with delinquents, and hopping between reckless flings, Shirley didn't hesitate to swap her SAT scores for mine the second they were out.

She landed first in the city and got into a top-tier university. I couldn't even scrape into community college, so I ended up in a factory job.

Now, only one swap remained.

Shirley's eyes brightened like she'd just seen a lifeline. She scanned my outfit with an eager, almost greedy look before asking, as if it were nothing, "Who are those people inside?"

"They're my friends. Here for my birthday," I said.

I gave her a quick once-over. She was dressed in the club's waitress uniform, standing there with a slight hint of unease.

"Do you work here?" I blinked in disbelief. "You went to Alveron University, didn't you? Why are you working here?"

"I-It's just a part-time thing. For fun," Shirley stammered, her face flickering with embarrassment. "My friend owns the place, so I'm just helping out."

"Oh… Gwen? I know her too." I glanced at Shirley with a smile. "Since we're all friends here, we should hang out sometime."

Shirley couldn't meet my eyes, too guilty to even answer. She'd made up everything she told me about that part-time job for a friend.

Back then, she'd taken my place at Alveron University. Even though it was the top school in the country, she wasted her college years bouncing between boyfriends and parties instead of studying.

Shirley failed nearly every core class, and there was no way to fix that. She even cheated more than once. In the end, Alveron University had no choice but to expel her.

"Lene, come back in. Everyone's waiting." Zach had come out to look for me after I'd been gone too long. The instant he realized I was talking to Shirley, his expression turned tense. "What's wrong? Did something happen?"

"Nothing's wrong. This is my friend, Shirley Doyle," I said.

Then I gave Shirley a quick smile before adding, "And this is Zach York, my boyfriend."

Zach and Shirley shared a look, both catching the shock and wariness in each other's eyes.

But Zach snapped back instantly, playing it like he had no idea who she was, his tone polite. "Hi, I'm Zach."

Shirley, though, wasn't half as composed. She gripped the hem of her shirt as she managed a strained smile. "I-I should get back to work. I need to go."

"Sure, see you later," I said, grinning as I watched her all but run off. Then I called out, "My number's still the same. Call me whenever."