Link Up ✔️

Chapter 64

It felt like a load off my chest telling someone. Finally!

I had not told my closest, and oldest friends, Chantell and JuJu. I had not told my old roommates, Twyla and Allura, thankfully. I had not told my ex-boyfriend that I thought was the one. Even my little sister did not know.

Somehow it was easy telling Gay, and I hope I did not regret it.

"Half a million is a lot for an eighteen-year-old. Sheesh!"

Lounged out on my bed I scrolled through my Twitter account as we talked. I told Gay more about why Angel gave me the money, about my father and his struggles with money, and then about my mother and her always asking for a handout.

"The money is for school and the things I need while in school. With whatever is left after college, I want to use to get started in life, not waste it all away in four years."

"Good point." Gay sat down in my chair at my desk. "My brother and I have trust funds too."

"What?" Now this, I did not know.

"Not a big deal, it's hardly half a million and we don't get it till we turn twenty-one, so next year for him. Probably a fourth of yours. My grandparents set it up for us, not my parents."

"Oh." This was all an interesting bit of detail. I did not feel alone with secret money. "And what do you plan on doing with it, if you don't mind me asking."

Gay shrugged. "I don't need it for college, my parents are paying for that, along with scholarships. So more than likely buy a nice place to live after college because I do not want to live with my parents ever again."

I never thought about where I would live after college. I assumed I would go back and stay with my dad and Angel. It was a huge house and they would not mind. Living on your own was underrated when you were still young and learning.

"Or maybe buy all the smoke I can find and have a big ass party and then go do my thing in the world and make more money."

I bust out laughing at her. Gay was real, and that's what I liked about her. We went on to talk about our plans for after college. Young hopefuls, just wishing things went our way in three years. I still had no idea if I wanted to get a job somewhere or work for either my dad or Angel. Or use whatever money I had left and do my own thing.

Again, I had time for that.

"Forget all that, future stuff, that's years away...what are you going to do about your mother?"

"What do you mean? I'm done with her. You heard me, she keeps begging for money and I keep giving it to her. I can't tell her about my money or she would bleed me dry."

"True," Gay said. "But she is your mother."

That's why I still had a guilty conscious about it but I was going to stand my ground. We always struggled when I was growing up but my mother always found a way. She either got a piece of a job, just enough to get by for a while, or she got money from friends or my father or a boyfriend. She could do the same now.

"You're lucky you don't have a mother like mine," I said to her.

"You met my mother, remember? She's a basketcase."

She was over-the-top protective, but she was not a leech.

"All I'm saying is, you have more than enough for college. More than enough to have a nice start after graduation. You could like...give your mother an allowance every now and then, without revealing where you get it from."

"She thinks my dad and Angel give me money."

"Then there you go."

Could I really give my mother money for the next four years and she would not bother me anymore? Or would this go on into adulthood, and I would continue to give her money? On some level, no matter what, I loved my mother and my little brother. I want the best for them, not for something bad to happen to them.