One classmate chimed in, "Youth really is an advantage. Your sugar daddy's wife must be old and washed up by now, right?"
"Actually, no. She's the same age as me. Apparently she's even an alumna."
Fiona's lip curled. "She has no class whatsoever. Has new clothes but won't wear them—she'd rather go haul boxes in a warehouse. Spends the whole year in that ratty, worn-out uniform."
"We've been together three years now. He says this is the year he'll make it official."
Necklace. Properties. Alumna. Worn-out work uniform...
She was describing me.
——
Every pair of eyes at the table slowly turned in my direction. Heat crawled up my neck, my face burning under their stares.
I opened my mouth to explain, but Fiona smiled, pressing her lips together.
"Athena Barnes, you had so many rich boys chasing you back in college. I heard you married some nobody with nothing to his name. These past few years must have been rough."
Rough didn't begin to cover it.
I'd married Wilfred Rivera against my parents' explicit wishes—a man without a penny to his name. It cost me my family.
Back then, we'd squeezed into a basement apartment smaller than a hundred square feet.