I went back into the main living area. The apartment felt strangely small without our cheap furniture and thrift store decor, like the space had expanded to make room for our lives.
I looked at my phone, willing it to ring.
At loose ends, I checked the fridge. It, too, had been cleaned out, except for one dried out end of cheddar cheese. I peeled back the wrapping to see if any of it was salvageable, but it was all hard and shiny. I went to toss it in the trash under the sink, but even the trash can was gone.
And that’s when I saw it.
Red flag #6.
An envelope, on the counter.
I opened it and pulled out several pages of dense legalese, but my eyes only registered on the all-caps heading: EVICTION NOTICE.
Which made no sense. We gave notice that we were leaving, we couldn’t be evicted. And we’d never missed a rent payment, that I knew for sure, because I paid it. It was easier to use my account to pay, giventhat Dylan used his primarily for business, and his accountant—a total idiot, according to Dylan—got confused when there were personal expenses withdrawn, too. Wait, maybe that should’ve been red flag #1…
Or maybe it should’ve been that every month on the first, I withdrew cash and Dylan brought it to our landlord. Dylan didn’t trust Venmo, said it’s too vulnerable to hackers, and he was the tech guy, so who was I to argue? He also didn’t trust our landlord, said he didn’t like the way he looked at me, even though he was about eighty-five years old and wore glasses so thick he was probably considered legally blind. Red flag #463.
If the most obvious thing is usually the right thing, then the most obvious thing was that there’d been a mistake. The eviction notice couldn’t be for us. I flipped the envelope to see whose name was on it, and that’s when I saw the Post-it note, stuck to the front.
I opened and closed my eyes several times to make sure I was reading it right, hoping that, in the long seconds that I spent squeezing my eyelids together, the letters on the note might have rearranged themselves to say something—anything—different from what they said. Which was this:
C —
Sorry.
D.
The framed photo fell from my hand. The glass shattered, scattering across the floor. I read the note again.
Sorry.
A small part of my brain cried outFor what? Sorry for what?!?But the truth was, I already knew.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Kei’s brow is furrowed and the corners of his mouth pull down into a small frown.
“So, he cleaned out your bank account and your apartment, and ghosted?”
“That’s not even the worst part.”
“There’s something worse?”
“I co-signed on a loan for him, using my mom’s house as collateral. I now owe First Union bank over a hundred grand.”
Kei pinches the bridge of his nose with his thumb and his forefinger.
“I know,” I say. “I’m an idiot.”
“What do you mean?”
I squeeze my eyes shut to force the tears back in. “I should have known better.” I wipe my nose with the back of my hand. “There weresomany signs. But I loved him, and he was there offering me the perfect life, and it’s like I stopped being able to see what was right in front of me.”
Kei reaches his arm around my shoulders. He doesn’t say anything, he just holds on tight.
“There’s no one to blame but myself.”
Kei brushes my hair away from my face. “That’s not true. He betrayed you.”
