Five years I'd spent with Caleb Henson, the two of us pinching every penny until we'd finally scraped together the down payment on a cramped little fixer-upper.
The day we moved out, I happened to catch a transfer record on his phone. Fifty million dollars, sent in a single wire to a woman named Gabriella Henson. The memo read: birthday gift for my baby.
I froze where I stood.
He didn't explain. He only said, flat as a closed door, "You went through my phone?"
It was only later that I learned Caleb was the sole heir of the Henson Group, and that I couldn't even set foot in his world.
He never took me to nice restaurants. Too extravagant, he'd say.
On anniversaries, all I got were handmade cards. That's what counts, he'd say.
I believed it for five years. Until I saw with my own eyes that he'd rented out an entire island to put on a fireworks show for her.
I didn't argue. I just packed my bags in silence.
Caleb blocked the doorway. "You're just going to walk out like that?"
I looked at him, steady. "I put thirty thousand into the down payment on this place. Cash me out. Not a cent less."
——
"Do you think I'm an idiot?"
When I asked it, Caleb was leaning against the shoe cabinet, still holding the moving contract the company had dropped off.
He glanced down at it. Said nothing.
I asked again. "Five years. Every day I worked until eleven, midnight. Weekends I ran around tile and hardware showrooms, haggling with vendors for half an hour to save thirty bucks on flooring. And what were you doing? Wiring some woman fifty million?"
He lifted his eyes to me.
"That's enough."
He said it.
"Enough of what?"
"Enough of this little tantrum."
I stared at him.
In five years he'd spoken to me countless times. Tender, impatient, coaxing. Not once had he used that tone.
Like he was talking to a stranger.
Caleb set the contract down on the entry table.
He straightened a cuff. I'd never seen those cufflinks before, deep navy, set with what was probably the real thing.
"That apartment," he started. "You did put in thirty thousand. I'll have someone send it to you."
"Right now," I said, "I want you to tell me what you've actually been thinking all these years."
He was quiet for a few seconds.
"Nothing, really."
"Caleb!"
He sighed.
He slid his hands into his pockets and leaned back against the wall, his whole body loose, at ease.
"You really want the truth?"
I nodded.
"Fine."
He said, "The truth is, I never planned to go the distance with you. Not from the start."
I thought I'd cry. I didn't.
Once you've spent a whole night turning a thing over in your head, the road to tears gets sealed off.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Being with you was just about having someone to share a life with."
He tilted his head. "You're steady. Low-maintenance. You don't make a fuss. Living with you meant I didn't have to deal with all the messy stuff. But if you're asking whether I loved you—"
He paused, as if choosing his words.
"I never did. Not once, start to finish."
I waited for the rest. For something like but it changed later, or being together so long made it different.
He didn't say it.
"Then why save up for an apartment with me?" I asked.
"That apartment." The words came easy. "You really thought I needed to save?"
No.
He didn't.
The number he'd casually tossed away could have bought ten of our cramped little fixer-uppers.
He'd crammed into a rental with me, eaten sandwiches, walked an extra mile to dodge a few dollars in delivery fees. Not because he was poor.
Because he thought I wasn't worth more.
"You were playing me," I said.
He didn't deny it.
"From the very first day, when you added me at the subway entrance, to when you told me you came from out of town too, that your family was ordinary and you wanted to build a life in this city with me. All of it. You made it up?"
