can’t do her any good now, but it can help me and my family. I’ve lived in a shelter before, and I’m not going back. If you don’t want to help, you’re free to go.” I roll the hairpin between my fingertips and stare down at the lock.
In my peripheral, I see him reach into his pocket, and I can’t resist looking to see what he’s taking out.
His wallet.
Unbelievable.
“I’m not taking your money, Zan. That’s not how this works. Don’t insult me by offering.”
He ignores me, opens it, and reaches into the slot that holds cash.
I look away. “I’m serious. I swear if you offer, I’ll never speak to you again.”
What he sticks into my line of sight, though, isn’t green.
It’s white.
It’s got watermarks of peaches, and a peach-colored strip running down its left side. There are words and numbers—slightly faded—printed on it in black ink.
Six numbers to be exact.
17
06
46
01
29
07
Same ones I memorized months ago.
I can’t move.
“Take it,” he says.
There is absolutely no way.
“Zan, why do you have that?”
“I’m really asking myself the same question.”
Smartass.
“How did you get it?”
He doesn’t answer so I look up. (Old habits die hard.)
“I bought it,” he says.
He’s still holding it out, so I zoom in on it again. “I don’t understand.”
“As I mentioned when we were house-hunting, I turned eighteen on Christmas Eve. I’m actually surprised you didn’t pick up on it then. That I could have it.”
No words.
“I wanted to commemorate my birthday by buying something I couldn’t have gotten the day before. Couldn’t bring myself to purchase cigarettes or get a tattoo. So I bought a lottery ticket.”
No. Words.
“Mr. Z sold it to me while you were hiding in the bathroom. Honestly forgot about the thing until that day you pulled me aside in the cafeteria. I went home and checked the numbers before I met you at the park.”
Can’t breathe now.
“Are you gonna take it?”
“You’ve had it this whole time?”
He sighs. Runs a hand through his hair. “Yeah. I have.”
Stay calm, Rico. “What were you gonna do if we found Ethel Streeter?”
“I was gonna give it to her,” he says. “If she was really in need and seemed like she could handle it—”
“Excuse me?”
There’s that confused face again. “You’re excused?”
ASS. HOLE. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
“Huh?”
“If she ‘seemed like she could handle it’? What gives you the right to decide what somebody else can handle?”
“Last I checked, I’m the rightful owner of this ticket,” he says. “Pretty sure I can do whatever the hell I want with it.”
I look him in the eye. “You lied to me.”
“What?”
“You lied,” I say. “I asked what you’d do if you had it, and you said you’d throw it away. You lied.”
He doesn’t respond, but his jaw flexes and his eyes narrow….
“As a matter of fact, why do you still have it, Zan? We’ve known Ethel’s dead for weeks. Why didn’t you ‘throw it away’ as soon as we found out?”
His bottom lip disappears between his teeth. Which makes me that much more furious.
“You weren’t even gonna tell me, were you? Were you planning to just hold on to it as a hundred-and-six-million-dollar keepsake? Maybe use it as a bookmark to remind yourself of the luck you have but don’t need? Would you frame it eventually? Hang it in that CEO’s office you’ll eventually occup—”
“Did it occur to you that I could use this money?”
And there it is. My suspicions made real. “Anyone could ‘use’ the money, Zan.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it. I’ll admit it: no. I don’t know what it’s like to be poor or to ‘lack’ what I need, as you put it. But I do know what it’s like to not have choices. To have someone else decide the course of your whole life.”
I’m shaking my head. “That’s not true, Zan.”
“What do you mean, it’s ‘not true’? I don’t see anyone telling you that you have to take over the family business.”
“You can say no.”
“What?”
“NO, Zan. The word NO. You can say it. You can go to college. Get a regular job like the rest of us. No one’s making you stay with your parents’ company. No one’s making you ‘climb the ranks’ until you can take it over. YOU are making those decisions. If anybody on earth has ‘choices,’ it’s YOU.”
He doesn’t respond.
“That’s the problem with you rich people. You think the way you live is normal. Like, great, you worked at Daddy’s company and made enough money to