I used to tell myself I enjoyed the loneliness—that it was a choice, not a circumstance.
Well, that's not really true, is it?
Maybe I didn't exactlyenjoybeing lonely, but I was comfortable in it. Familiar with it. It was like an old, worn-out sweater that didn't fit quite right but you kept wearing anyway because at least you knew what to expect.
And besides, I had my writing. My stories. My online community of faceless readers who didn't know my real name or see my real face.
That made it bearable.
More than bearable—it gave me purpose.
That all changed after I came home from the island.
Everything changed.
I couldn't stand to be alone anymore. Couldn't stand to be in that apartment with its four walls closing in and the silence pressing down like a physical weight. Couldn't write a single fucking word, no matter how many times I opened my laptop and stared at the blinking cursor.
The stories that used to flow out of me—dark, twisted, cathartic—they just... stopped.
So... the first thing I did was start looking for a new apartment.
I needed to get out of that studio. Needed walls that didn't hold memories ofbefore—before the island, before him, before everything got so goddamn complicated. I couldn't write there anymore. Couldn't breathe there. Every corner reminded me of the person I used to be, the one who thought she had her life figured out even when it was falling apart.
The application process for rentals these days isinsane. Background checks, credit checks, employment verification, references. I didn't qualify for anything—not with my credit score in the toilet and my employment history looking like a fucking patchwork quilt of part-time gigs and freelance work that barely covered rent.
But for this place—this beautiful, enormous third-floor loft with its exposed brick and twelve-foot ceilings and windows that let in actual goddamn sunlight—I offered to pay a year in advance.
Thirty thousand dollars.
Cash. Well, wire transfer. Same difference.
I didn't even blink when I made the offer.
The landlord didn't either. Just nodded like people threw that kind of money around every day and handed me the keys three days later.
Nine months ago, I'd never had thirty thousand dollars in my life. Hell, I doubt I evenmadethat in a year with the pathetic employment history I had—cobbling together coffee shop shifts, and freelance copywriting gigs that paid pennies, and restaurant work that left me smelling like fryer grease.
Now, I literally have millions.
I don't know the exact number. I stopped trying to calculate it after the first few weeks.
Every month I get bank statements in my email. Each account has exactly two hundred fifty thousand dollars in it. No more, no less. The maximum the FDIC covers in case of bank failure.
I had to look that up. I didn't understand why he kept making new accounts instead of just dumping everything into one. Why the specific number. Why it mattered.
Finally ChatGPT explained it to me in tiny little baby words: federal insurance limits, asset protection, risk mitigation. The kind of financial planning that people with actual wealth do automatically, without even thinking about it.
I don't know how many accounts there are. A dozen, at least. Maybe more.
I don't even open those emails anymore.
I have enough money to really escape. To actually, genuinely disappear if I wanted to badly enough. The resources are there, sitting in those accounts I don't open anymore, waiting to be deployed.
I could hire someone to help me cover my tracks—a fixer, maybe, whatever those people are called. Probably hire an entire security team if I needed to. Find a hacker who specializes in making people vanish digitally. Get myself somewhere safe, somewhere remote. Purchase a whole new identity with papers good enough to pass scrutiny. Figure out a way to systematically close all those accounts he set up, liquidate everything, and funnel it into new ones under a different name in a different country.
I've thought about it. Late at night when I can't sleep, when the walls of this beautiful apartment feel like a new prison, just prettier. I've mapped it out in my head, step by step, like plotting one of my stories.
The logistics of disappearing.
