I stared at the screen until the words blurred.
Then I set the phone down very carefully on the floor beside me, as if it might explode.
"Free," I said to the empty apartment. My voice came out strange, flat, and distant, like it belonged to someone else. "He's setting me free."
The laugh that escaped me was not a happy sound. It was the kind of laugh that lives next door to a scream, separated by the thinnest of walls.
Two years' salary. All ties dissolved.
Nathaniel Sterling, in his infinite million-dollar wisdom, had solved the ‘Claire Problem’. Identified the liability, allocated resources, and executed the severance. Clean. Efficient. Final.
"Well, Mom," I said to the shadows gathering in the corners of my apartment, "you called it."
I could hear her voice so clearly, it made my chest ache, that particular blend of cigarette smoke and resignation that had soundtracked my childhood:Told you, baby girl. Love is a transaction. You give, and you give, and you give, and eventually they tally up the books and settle the account. That's just how it works.
"He didn't even fight," I whispered. "I told him I was leaving and he just... let me go."
Why wouldn't he? You saw what happened in that courtroom. You're damaged goods now, Claire. Damaged goods with receipts. That fancy lawyer put your whole broken history on display, and now everyone knows what I always knew.
"Which is what?"
That you need too much. Love too hard. Try too desperately to make yourself indispensable because somewhere deep down, you know you're not enough on your own.
The words hit bone. I wrapped my arms around my knees and rocked slightly, the way I used to do as a child when she was having one of her bad nights.
"That's not fair."
Fair?Her ghost laughed bitterly.Baby girl, when has anything ever been fair? Your father left when you were five. I left when you were twelve. And now this man, this rich, powerful man who could have anyone, he's writing you a check and showing you the door. You see the pattern yet?
"It's not the same. Nathaniel isn't?—"
Isn't what? Isn't abandoning you? Honey, read that text again. 'All ties dissolved.' 'Complete freedom.' That's not love talking. That's a CEO closing out a problematic account.
I pressed my palms against my eyes until I saw stars.
"You don't know him."
I know men. I know how they work. They take what they need: your time, your care, your heart, and when things get messy, they pay you off and find someone cleaner. Someone who doesn't come with a diagnosis and a history.
"Stop."
Someone who doesn't need so goddamn much all the time.
"I said stop!"
My voice echoed off the walls, sharp and ragged. The silence that followed was deafening.
I sat there, breathing hard, my mother's ghost finally quiet. But her words lingered like smoke, curling into all the spaces where my confidence used to live.
Was she right?
The evidence was damning. I'd walked into Nathaniel's life broken and desperate. He'd paid my debts, given me a job, and brought me into his home. And I'd done exactly what Victoria's lawyer accused me of, I'd gotten attached. To Millie. To the kitchen conversations and the shared laughter and the fragile, terrifying hope of something more.
I'd let myself believe I mattered to them. Not as an employee, but as a person.
And now I was being paid to disappear.
See?My mother's voice crept back, softer now, almost gentle.Transaction complete. Balance settled. That's all it ever was, baby girl.
