Another wire transfer pinged. It was another "apology payment" from Victoria Sterling, my girlfriend of five years. This one was different: $500,000. Far more than her usual fifty thousand, a sum that had already made me secretly rich. I' d played the role of the devoted, slightly naive boyfriend perfectly for too long. But this unprecedented amount felt less like an apology and more like a severance. Then, a video message arrived from Dylan Price, from Vicky' s social circle. It showed Vicky at a party, her arms wrapped around a young man, kissing him deeply. He looked unsettlingly like me, a younger, perhaps less worn version. Dylan' s text followed: "That' s Caleb Vance. Her childhood flame. Guess who\'s back?" Suddenly, Vicky' s pet name, "My C," and her online handles like "ForeverC," made a sickening kind of sense. I was never "C" for Ethan. I was a stand-in. A sharp pang of genuine hurt hit my chest. I remembered being a scholarship kid from Appalachia, chasing her, believing she saw something in me. Her friends had called me a "charity case." I later found her hidden love letters to Caleb, recently signed, calling me "just a boy, a distraction." When I finally confronted her during our breakup, she exploded. "You don\'t break up with me, Ethan. I decide when this is over! You belong to me!" I was shocked by the raw possessiveness in her voice. Her absolute conviction that she owned me, body and soul. She saw me as nothing more than an expensive pet, a compliant placeholder. How could I have been so blind, so foolishly naive for five years? But that immediate hurt quickly turned cold, pragmatic. If I was a substitute, I was a well-paid one. That $500,000 wasn't severance; it was a bonus for a long-term performance. With millions now in my accounts, I was financially independent. It was time to leave Vicky and her gilded cage behind.
Another wire transfer pinged.
It was another "apology payment" from Victoria Sterling, my girlfriend of five years.
This one was different: $500,000.
Far more than her usual fifty thousand, a sum that had already made me secretly rich.
I' d played the role of the devoted, slightly naive boyfriend perfectly for too long.
But this unprecedented amount felt less like an apology and more like a severance.
Then, a video message arrived from Dylan Price, from Vicky' s social circle.
It showed Vicky at a party, her arms wrapped around a young man, kissing him deeply.
He looked unsettlingly like me, a younger, perhaps less worn version.
Dylan' s text followed: "That' s Caleb Vance. Her childhood flame. Guess who\'s back?"
Suddenly, Vicky' s pet name, "My C," and her online handles like "ForeverC," made a sickening kind of sense.
I was never "C" for Ethan.
I was a stand-in.
A sharp pang of genuine hurt hit my chest.
I remembered being a scholarship kid from Appalachia, chasing her, believing she saw something in me.
Her friends had called me a "charity case."
I later found her hidden love letters to Caleb, recently signed, calling me "just a boy, a distraction."
When I finally confronted her during our breakup, she exploded.
"You don\'t break up with me, Ethan. I decide when this is over! You belong to me!"
I was shocked by the raw possessiveness in her voice.
Her absolute conviction that she owned me, body and soul.
She saw me as nothing more than an expensive pet, a compliant placeholder.
How could I have been so blind, so foolishly naive for five years?
But that immediate hurt quickly turned cold, pragmatic.
If I was a substitute, I was a well-paid one.
That $500,000 wasn't severance; it was a bonus for a long-term performance.
With millions now in my accounts, I was financially independent.
It was time to leave Vicky and her gilded cage behind.
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