Rich Heir Life on Borrowed Love

I am an orphan who was adopted, yet I live like a king in my house. While my older brother, Eric Jones, sleeps in the attic, which is freezing in the winter and sweltering in the summer, I get the nicest bedroom, the south-facing one with the best sunlight. Eric wears worn-out clothes from the flea market, the kind sold by the pound. As for me, I get new clothes from the mall every year. Some still have the tags on. Eric starts working at a construction site right after high school. As he works three shifts a day, his hands are covered in calluses. I, on the other hand, attend the best private high school in the city, where one year's tuition costs as much as two years of his wages. My adoptive mother, Dolores Bender, looks over my straight-A report card, wipes away her tears, and says, "Even if I have to sell everything we own, I'm putting you through college." Whenever relatives come over, they tell me how lucky I am to have been taken in by the kindest family on earth. That's what I've always believed, too, right up until Thanksgiving, when Eric had too much to drink. Chapter 1 Thanksgiving came around, and for once, the whole family was together. I was pouring beer for Dad. Just as I filled his glass, my brother, Eric Jones, suddenly held out his own glass and muttered, "Pour me some too." I froze, instinctively glancing at Mom. I remembered that she'd told me Eric was allergic to alcohol. He couldn't have so much as a drop, or he'd break out in a rash. "Eric, you can't drink. Have a soda instead." Unexpectedly, he snatched the bottle right out of my hand and drank straight from it. When he set it down, he seemed fine, so I finally relaxed. I'd barely sat back down when he fixed his eyes on me and smiled. "Peter Jones." He'd used my full name. "Do you know how much your life is worth?" Dad shot up from his chair and smacked Eric on the back of the head. "If you're drunk, go up to the attic and sleep it off! Why are you making a scene?" Shocked, I quickly got up to stop him. "Dad, why did you hit him?" The blow knocked Eric off balance, and he banged his forehead on the corner of the table, leaving a gash. Turning around in a panic, I yelled for Mom to get the first-aid kit, but she just stood there, frozen. Blood trickled down from Eric's brow, but he didn't even wipe it away. He just stared at me, his eyes filled with sadness and hurt. I lost my temper right then, yelling, "Mom, hurry up and help Eric up! He's bleeding!" Mom finally snapped out of it and came running over. She pressed a dish towel to his face, cursing under her breath the whole time. "I told you not to drink, didn't I? But no, you just had to! Look at the state you're in now. You just had to make a spectacle of yourself on Thanksgiving!" Eric tipped backward under the pressure, but he didn't resist. Then he suddenly spoke. "A million dollars. I'd say your life, plus this leg of mine, is worth a million dollars." The moment he finished speaking, Mom's face went deathly pale. Dad hit him again. "Shut your mouth!" This one landed harder than the last. The corner of his lip split open, and blood started coming out. I stood up to intervene, but Mom seized my arm. "Peter, stay out of it! He's just drunk. He'll be fine once he sleeps it off in the attic." My tall, broad-shouldered dad grabbed Eric by the collar and dragged him upstairs. The attic stairs were narrow and steep, and with half his body dragging on the floor, Eric's ankle kept banging against the edges of the steps with dull thuds. Still, he didn't struggle or say another word. But just before he disappeared into the darkness, he called out, "Peter…" Chapter 2 My name was Peter Jones, and I was 23. I'd graduated from college that year and was working in the city. My mom was Dolores Bender. My dad was Henry Jones. And my older brother was Eric Jones. Dad was Mom's second husband, and Eric was Mom's son from her first marriage. As for me, Mom adopted me from an orphanage. I'd known all of that for as long as I could remember. Whenever relatives came over, they would always tell me how lucky I was. "I swear, Peter practically fell into the good life." "Dolores and Henry are such kind people for raising an orphan like he's their own flesh and blood. You'd be hard-pressed to find people like them." "And look how well they've raised him. He's clean-cut and soft-spoken. You can tell he's the studious type just by looking at him." Mom would always smile, glowing with satisfaction. "Peter's done us proud. He makes all our hard work worth it." I thought I was lucky, too. I had the nicest room in the house. It was south-facing, a good 160 square feet, and got plenty of sunlight. I had an air conditioner, a computer, and a desk. Posters of my favorite athletes covered my walls. On the other hand, Eric lived in the attic, where there was only a bed. It felt like an oven in the summer and an icebox in the winter. I'd been up there once, in the dead of winter. Ten minutes was all it took for me to catch a cold. I asked Mom, "Why does Eric live up there?" Mom let out a sigh, looking exasperated. "He insists on staying up there. Says he goes to bed late and doesn't want to disturb your studying." I asked about it, but he merely smiled and said, "The attic is great. It's pretty quiet up here." And I believed them. All my clothes were the latest stuff from the big department stores. Whenever the seasons changed, Mom would take me to the biggest mall in the city and buy me a whole new wardrobe. Whether it was Nike, Adidas, or some other brand, I got whatever was popular at the time. Eric's clothes, on the other hand, all came from the flea market. Mom would get him one or two things whenever she went there to stock up on supplies. He would wear the same five-dollar T-shirts and ten-dollar jeans for years. Mom shook her head. "You think I don't want to? He won't have it. He says he does manual labor, and wearing nice clothes would just be a waste. You're different because you're in school. You've got to look presentable." And when I asked Eric about it, he merely said with a smile, "I do construction work, so I'd only end up ruining anything nice I wore." I was naive back then, so I believed them again. I went to the best private high school in the city. Tuition was over 30 thousand dollars a year. Mom said resolutely, "I'll do whatever it takes to put you through college." When Eric graduated from high school, he decided to start working instead of going to college. Mom went around telling everyone that he just didn't want to study anymore. But this time, I didn't believe her. I went straight to Eric and asked him about it. "Eric, why don't you want to go to college? Did you get mixed up with those troublemakers from around town?" I knew his grades weren't bad, so there had to be another reason he didn't want to keep studying. But something I said must've hit a nerve, because he shoved me away, hard, and roared, "You want to know why? Because your grades are better than mine! Because you're more like Mom's real son than I'll ever be!" I stood there frozen, unable to get a single word out. It took everything I had to force out, "Eric, do you hate me?" Eric wiped his face, then suddenly smacked me lightly on the head. "Why would I hate you? It's not your fault." His voice was low and rough as he added, "You just stay in school and study hard. If you don't make it into college, I'll kick your butt." I took those words to heart and studied like a madman from then on. I got into one of the top colleges in the country, becoming the first person from our small town to ever do it. Mom laid out three tables full of food and invited all our relatives and friends. She went around toasting everyone, proudly showing me off. "My son here made it into a top university!" Eric sat off in the corner that day. He didn't even take a seat at the table. I knew it was eating at him. Not long before that, Eric had taken a fall off the scaffolding at the construction site and broken his left leg. He had to stay home for three months. According to Mom, the foreman had coughed up some money as compensation, enough to cover Eric's medical bills and recovery. She didn't look the least bit concerned as she said that. Since I'd saved up some money working part-time, I stuffed a few thousand dollars into Eric's pocket. Alas, that made no difference because his leg still ended up permanently damaged. That night, after Thanksgiving dinner, I couldn't sleep no matter how much I tossed and turned. Eventually, I got up to go smoke on the balcony. As I passed the master bedroom, I heard Mom chewing Dad out. "This is all your fault! One drop of that cheap beer and there's no holding you back! You know perfectly well Peter can never find out about that!" Chapter 3 Dad quickly defended himself. "I never said a word! It was Eric who started running his mouth after getting drunk. You heard him yourself, didn't you?" Mom refused to drop it. "Then how did he find out? Did you tell him?" Dad shot back, "Do I look crazy to you? You think I'd tell him about that?" The two of them argued back and forth. I stood outside the door, my heart pounding. "Could he have figured it out himself? We've treated Eric and Peter so differently over the years. It's not like he's stupid." Mom's voice slipped through the crack in the door, thick with unmistakable irritation. Dad spoke again. "A quiet man can only swallow so much before something breaks." "Go feel him out tomorrow. Find out how much he knows. If he knows too much, we'll have to figure out a way to shut him up for good," Mom retorted. "He's your own flesh and blood. Could you really bring yourself to do that?" Mom went silent for a long time, so long that I thought they'd fallen asleep. Then a voice came from inside, one that chilled me to the bone. "So what if he's my flesh and blood? He can't even make my life better. He'd be better off dead!" Dad didn't say another word. The silence inside was deafening. I clenched my fists, my palms slick with sweat. The words "I'd say your life, plus this leg of mine, is worth a million dollars" kept echoing in my head. At the time, I'd written it off as drunken rambling. But now, it was obvious all of them had been hiding something from me. When I woke up the next morning, Eric was already gone. Mom said he'd left for the construction site before dawn. When I told Mom that I was going to go see him, her face fell. "What for? What's so interesting about that dump of a construction site? Just go back to work as soon as you can." I didn't move upon hearing that. Seeing that I wasn't budging, she softened her tone. "Your brother's just a big, rough oaf. He was drunk and talking nonsense last night. Don't take it to heart." "Maybe he's been feeling shortchanged. Over the years…" I sighed and left the rest unsaid. Mom hesitated for a moment, then forced a smile. "That's just how your brother is. When he gets drunk, he likes to complain about everything. Don't pay him any mind. His life is hard because that's the lot he drew. Yours is different." I smiled back and gave in. That afternoon, I told them I was popping over to a friend's, then made a beeline for Eric's construction site. There was so much dust at the construction site that I could hardly keep my eyes open. I wandered around for a while before I finally found Eric. He was pushing a little wheelbarrow piled high with broken bricks, hauling them out of the site. His left leg never fully recovered, so he walked with a limp and couldn't move very fast. The foreman nearby shouted at him, "Move it, Eric Jones! If you keep dragging your feet, you're fired! The only reason I hired you was because I felt sorry for you. I normally wouldn't hire someone with a limp!" Eric immediately picked up his pace. My eyes became red as I watched him. I called out, "Eric." He came to an abrupt stop and looked back at me, clearly caught off guard. Then he turned around and kept walking. Only after he'd tipped out the load and doubled back did he limp his way over. "What are you doing here? It's filthy. You should go." I forced myself to smile despite how much it hurt deep down. "I wanted to talk to you." He stared at me for a few seconds in silence before finally nodding. "Wait till I get off work." That evening, we sat down at a little diner near the construction site. He ordered two beers, poured a glass for me, then one for himself. "Aren't you allergic to alcohol?" I blurted out without thinking. He let out a laugh. "Never was." "Then why would Mom always say…" "What she says goes, I suppose." He took a sip of his beer. "So, what did you want to ask?" I stared at him, not knowing how to begin. He waited a while, then broke the silence first. "Forget what I said last night. I was drunk. It was nonsense." "Whether it was nonsense or not, I'll decide that for myself. Eric, we've been brothers all these years. I'm not stupid." He fell silent, so I asked, "What's this about a million dollars?" He lowered his head, staring at his glass without saying a word. I looked him straight in the eye as I spoke slowly. "I'm asking because of what I heard Mom and Dad say last night." He snapped his head up, his eyes wide with shock.