Poor Lie for Me, Lavish Gifts for Her

Five years of living together, and Ethan only gave me $300 a month for groceries.

He told me his take-home pay was only 0-0,500 a month, and that we needed to pinch pennies so we could save up for a wedding.

I believed him.

I never bought a dress that cost more than fifteen dollars.

In the scorching summer, I didn't even dare to turn on the AC because of the electric bill.

Then, while doing the laundry, a custom jewelry receipt slipped out of his suit pocket.

It was for a 0-00,000 diamond ring.

I was ecstatic for exactly ten seconds.

Until I saw the recipient's name. It belonged to a woman I had never heard of.

I opened his laptop. His bank statements were wide open on the screen.

His actual monthly salary was 0-00,000.

And he was transferring $8,000 of it to that woman every single month.

The measly $300 he threw my way was the price tag he put on our eight-year relationship.

When he came home that night, I asked him about the ring.

He paused for a second, then gently stroked my hair.

"I just ordered it for a coworker, babe. You're overthinking."

But the moment he stepped into the kitchen, his phone on the table lit up.

The caller ID was a single red heart emoji, followed by a word: Wife.

Ethan didn't get home until almost eleven o'clock.

He kicked off his shoes, saw me sitting at the dining table in the dark, and walked over to gently brush a stray hair from my forehead.

"Why are the lights off?"

"Saving electricity," I replied.

He let out a soft laugh and pulled a sandwich out of the fridge.

"You didn't make dinner tonight?"

I looked him straight in the eye.

"Ethan, what was that custom jewelry receipt in your pocket?"

His hand holding the sandwich froze.

Only for a split second, before his face relaxed into a natural smile.

"Oh, that? I ordered it for a coworker. Did you go through my pockets?"

"It fell out when I was doing the laundry," I said. "0-00,000. Your coworker must be incredibly generous."

He looked down and chuckled, sliding the sandwich toward me.

"Well, she makes good money."

He said it so casually.

So casually that I almost believed him.

But the image of that 0-00,000 monthly income statement was burned into my brain, searing hot and painful.

As he turned to walk into the kitchen, his phone on the table flashed.

The contact name: A red heart emoji, followed byWife.

I looked down and slowly ate the sandwich.

I didn't say another word.

The next day was Saturday.

Ethan left early in the morning, claiming his team had to go into the office to audit some urgent data.

I sat on the bed for a long time before pulling out my phone to look up the address I had secretly copied down.

The Pinnacle Apartments.

One of the most expensive luxury high-rises downtown, where even rent was sky-high.

I had never even bought a cup of coffee in that neighborhood.

Then, I searched the name Chloe Sterling on Twitter.

A beautifully curated profile popped up.

Her feed was filled with her aesthetic lifestyle. Gym sessions, luxury travel, trendy cafes, and designer outfits.

Every single photo radiated the effortless ease of someone who was thoroughly pampered.

Her latest post was from yesterday.

The caption read: My hubby worked late but still took me to that exclusive sushi spot I've been dying to try. Waited two months for this reservation, totally worth it!

At the edge of the photo, I caught a glimpse of Ethan's profile.

He was feeding her a piece of premium bluefin tuna, a tender smile on his face.

Just last week, I had asked him if we could get sushi.

He had said it was a waste of money and that we could just make it at home.

I scrolled down.

A month ago, she had posted:

Woke up to a brand-new car! Hubby thought my old ride wasn't safe enough, so he bought me a BMW in cash! How did I get so lucky?

A white BMW was parked in a pristine underground garage, with a massive bouquet of roses sitting in the passenger seat.

My car was a beat-up second-hand sedan. It had broken down several times, and Ethan had never once offered to help fix it.

When I said I wanted to buy a new one, he told me that taking the subway was cheaper, so why waste money on a car?

I scrolled further back.

Three years ago:

Happy three-year anniversary! Hubby upgraded all our home appliances! He says a home is the most important place, so we have to live comfortably.

Three years.

Ethan and I had been together for eight years, living together for five.

Which meant, in our fifth year together, he had started a whole new life with someone else.

From our fifth year to our eighth year.

He had laid next to me in our cramped bed, whispered, "Audrey, just wait a little longer," while in another home, he was living the exact life he had promised me but never delivered.

I locked my phone, leaned against the headboard, and stared at the peeling paint in the corner of the ceiling.

It had leaked during last summer's storms. Ethan had said hiring a contractor was too expensive and that he'd patch it up over the weekend.

A year had passed. It was still unpatched.

At four in the afternoon, I drove over to The Pinnacle Apartments.

I parked across the street, watching the building through my car window.

The lobby was bathed in warm, golden light. A doorman in a crisp uniform stood at the entrance.

I looked down at my pilled hoodie and faded jeans. I didn't even have the courage to step inside.

I sat there all afternoon.

As dusk began to fall, Ethan's car pulled out of the underground garage.

A young woman was sitting in the passenger seat.

She was resting her head on his shoulder. Ethan had one hand on the steering wheel and the other gently holding her fingers.

There was a look on his face I had never seen before.

Relieved, happy, completely carefree.

When he was with me, he was always frowning.

He was always tired, always stressed, always complaining about pressure.

Their car turned the corner and vanished.

I started my engine and slowly drove away.

At nine that night, my phone buzzed.

It was an unknown number.

"Audrey, you sat in your car outside The Pinnacle for three hours this afternoon. The building security showed me the surveillance footage."

"You're Audrey Miller, right? The girl Ethan told me about?"

My fingertips turned ice-cold.

A second message popped up immediately after.

"Don't worry, I don't mean any harm. But I think there are some things we need to talk about."

I texted back: "I'm not his ex. I'm his girlfriend. We never broke up."

The other side was silent for a few seconds.

"Audrey, you probably don't know this yet."

"But in Ethan's mind, you guys ended a long time ago."

The messages kept popping up on my screen.

Ethan told me you have severe depression and that you're mentally unstable. He was terrified of breaking up with you.

He was scared you'd do something crazy.

That's why he's been dragging this out, giving you a little allowance every month just to keep you calm and safe.

I stared at the words "keep you calm," and a wave of nausea hit my stomach.

I typed out a reply: "How much did he tell you about me?"

Chloe replied instantly.

Everything, honestly.

About how your mother had a mental breakdown and jumped off her building.

About how you were bullied as a kid, and how you tried to slit your wrists in high school.

Ethan said he's been carrying you on his back this whole time, but he's just so exhausted.

He said you're like a black hole. No matter how much love he pours in, it's never enough.

My fingers hovered over the screen. I couldn't type a single word.

Those were the dark secrets of my past, the abyss I had spent over a decade crawling out of.

It was the past I had finally overcome so I could sleep without nightmares, walk alone at night without shaking, and look in the mirror and smile.

Ethan had told me that my scars weren't a burden to him.

He had promised he would never tell a soul.

And now, a woman he had known for less than three years knew exactly where my deepest scars were, better than I did.

Chloe kept typing.

Audrey, I didn't mean to hurt you.

In the beginning, Ethan didn't tell me he had a girlfriend. When he finally confessed, I agreed to wait for him.

But we truly love each other. Look, this is what he got me for my birthday last month.

An image popped up.

A Tiffany necklace resting next to a bouquet of red roses.

The card read: To my darling Chloe, Happy Birthday. Here's to the rest of our lives together.

My birthday was also last month.

Ethan had sent me a Snapchat: Happy birthday! I'll make you some noodles tonight.

Not even a single flower.

After he made the noodles, he went straight to his room, saying he was tired.

I had sat alone in the living room, eating those noodles, actually feeling like I was the luckiest girl in the world.

Chloe sent a voice note next.

I tapped it. A sweet, high-pitched voice filled the quiet room.

"Audrey, Ethan only loves me. He says you're too clingy and that you make him feel like he's suffocating. Just let him go, and let yourself go too, okay?"

I locked my phone and walked out onto the balcony.

The night wind whipped against my face, freezing cold.

The streetlights below cast a dim, yellow glow. People were walking briskly, none of them stopping.

I stood there for a very long time, until my shoulders grew completely numb.

I went back inside and sent her one final message.

"Thank you for telling me all this."

She replied instantly: So you're willing to back off now?

I didn't answer.

Two days later, Ethan quietly unlocked the front door and walked in.

A luggage tag was still attached to his duffel bag, but he had already changed into clean clothes.

Seeing me sitting on the couch, he smiled and handed me a small paper bag.

"Audrey, the business trip was so hectic, but I managed to grab you these cookies."

I took the bag.

They were cheap, five-dollar supermarket cookies. He went on a trip and brought me a five-dollar box of cookies.

And for that other woman, a 0-00,000 diamond ring.

I looked at his face and asked him, word for word.

"Ethan, where exactly did you go on this business trip?"

"Seattle," he said smoothly.

"Then why did Chloe post a picture of the two of you in Hawaii two days ago?"

The living room went dead silent.

The smile on Ethan's face completely shattered.

He slowly sat down on the other end of the couch, clasped his hands together, and bowed his head.

After a long silence, he finally spoke.

"So you know."

It wasn't a question.

It was just a cold, tired sigh.

"Yes," I said. "I know everything."

Ethan rubbed his temples and looked up at me.

There was no panic in his eyes, and certainly no guilt.

There was only the calm, resigned look of someone who was glad the act was finally over.

"Audrey, I'm tired of lying to you."

"Chloe and I have been together for almost three years."

"She... she's the one I actually want to marry."

When those words hit my chest, it felt like a blunt blade hacking me right down the middle.

"And what about me?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

Ethan's eyes flickered.

"You?" He let out a bitter, soft laugh. "Audrey, it's not that I don't care about you. But you're just too heavy."

"Every single day with you, I've had to walk on eggshells. I had to manage your emotions, your illness, your fears."

"Do you have any idea how exhausting that is?"

"I never asked you to carry me," I said, tears threatening to spill. "I've been seeing my therapist. I've been taking my meds. I was getting better."

Ethan shook his head.

"You think you were getting better, but I wasn't."

"Every day I come back to this cramped, 400-square-foot studio, looking at your anxious face, these faded curtains, and that leaking ceiling..."

"I felt like I was suffocating."

His phone buzzed again.

He glanced at it. He didn't answer, but his lips involuntarily twitched into a small smile.

"Then why didn't you just break up with me?" I demanded. "You could have just told me. Why did you have to go behind my back?"

Ethan took a deep breath, finally letting his real thoughts slip out.

"Because I was terrified you'd kill yourself."

He stared at me, his gaze cold and clinical.

"Your mother did the exact same thing. She decided life was too hard and just jumped off a building."

"You're just like her. The moment something goes wrong, you look for an exit."

"In high school, when you slit your wrists and called me in the middle of the night... my hands were shaking so hard I could barely hold the phone."

"I never wanted to go through that nightmare again."

"So I stayed. I humored you. I sent you $300 every month just to keep you fed and stable."

"But Audrey, that isn't love."

"That was"

He paused.

"A chore."

I sat frozen, feeling as though a bucket of ice water had been poured over my head.

I was fourteen when my mother jumped.

A crowd had gathered at the bottom of the building.

I had rushed downstairs so fast I lost a shoe.

She was lying on the pavement, blood seeping from her hair, her eyes half-open.

After that, I had to transfer schools three times.

At every school, kids would point at me and whisper"Her mom was crazy," "Her mom jumped," "She's going to lose her mind too."

Only Ethan had stood by me.

He had held my hand tight and told me, "Audrey, you are not your mother. You're going to be okay."

He was the one who dragged me out of the dark.

And now, he stood before me, ripping open my deepest, most sacred wound just to use it as an excuse for his betrayal.

My throat tightened, my voice shaking violently.

"Ethan, you promised me. You promised you would never use my past against me."

He shrugged.

"I'm not using it against you. I'm just stating facts."

"Chloe is different. With her, I can breathe. I can be happy. I don't have to watch her every second, terrified she's going to snap."

"Your anxiety, your illness, your trauma... it's too heavy."

"I can't carry it anymore."

The doorbell rang.

Ethan stood up to answer it.

Chloe was standing outside. She was wearing a bright yellow sundress and immediately wrapped her arm around his.

She glanced at me, her eyes filled with condescending pity.

"Ethan, are you okay? I was worried you couldn't handle her on your own."

I stood up, holding myself steady against the table.

"Don't worry," I said, looking her in the eye. "I'm not going to hurt anyone."

Ethan squeezed Chloe's hand and looked back at me.

"Audrey, I didn't want to hurt you. Let's just end this civilly, okay?"

I forced my trembling legs to stand straight.

"Okay."

They left together.

The moment the door clicked shut, I collapsed onto the floor.

My entire body shook uncontrollably.

But I didn't cry.

I couldn't shed a single tear.

For four whole days, I didn't step outside that door.

The curtains were drawn tight. My phone sat on the far end of the couch, and every time it buzzed, my body flinched.

Chloe's messages were relentless.

I knew they were from her because the screen lit up every few minutes.

On the fifth day, I finally picked up the phone.

Thirty-two unread messages.

They were screenshots of her conversations with Ethan.

Baby, I already booked the wedding dress appointment for next month.

Are your bags packed? I'll pick you up for our flight tomorrow morning.

I miss you. FaceTime tonight?

Every word was like a red-hot iron rod, searing into my numb flesh.

She had also sent a paragraph of text.

Audrey, he saw that you turned off your phone and said he's finally relieved.

He said he hates it when you throw fits. He told me that when you have an episode, nobody can stop youjust like your mother.

Just like your mother.

Those words spun in my head a thousand times.

I threw the phone against the wall.

Then, I crawled over to pick it up.

The screen was cracked, but it still lit up.

I curled up in the corner of the kitchen, staring at the small pot on the stove that Ethan used to make oatmeal for me every morning.

A sticky note was still stuck to the fridge in his handwriting: Remember to eat breakfast.

Eight years.

I remembered him sitting in the back row of our high school classroom, sliding his lunch into my lap.

I told him I wasn't hungry.

He said, "If you don't eat, I don't eat."

He was the one who helped me report my stepfather, Frank.

The day the police dragged that monster away after six years of abuse, Ethan had sprinted over and wrapped me in his arms.

He had said, "Audrey, no one will ever hurt you again."

"I'll protect you."

His eyes had been red, his chin resting on my head, his chest warm and comforting.

That was the first time in my life I felt like living might actually be worth it.

But now.

He had taken those precious memories and turned them into weapons to discard me.

I didn't know when he had started playing the savior to my face while calling me a psycho behind my back.

On the night of the sixth day, I took a shower and put on clean clothes.

I turned on the lights and began packing my things, one by one.

I only took what was mine.

My toothbrush, my towels, and the dark red cardigan my grandmother had knit for me before she passed away.

The lamp Ethan bought me? Left behind.

The letters he wrote me? Left behind.

The framed photo of us? I turned it face down on the table.

I zipped up my suitcase and walked to the entryway.

I stuck a sticky note on the shoe rack.

Eight years. I'm returning them to you.

I placed the apartment keys right next to it.

When I stepped out, the hallway was dead silent.

The elevator dinged open.

I rolled my suitcase inside and pressed the button for the lobby.

Before the doors closed, I took one last look at the place I called home.

And then, I never looked back.