Chapter 7
I was up all night that night. I curled up in the corner of the small bed in my childhood bedroom, with the light off and the blanket pulled up high.
I used to think Chloe was my best friend. During college, she was always so glamorous, walking around the Berkel campus with her Jimmy Choos. She was usually surrounded by a group of followers from the Alpha Phi sorority. I always wore my headphones and studied organic chemistry in the self-study area of the library.
She was the first person who really noticed me. We began to take elective courses together, drink cheap coffee from the library together, and even bake frozen pizza together in the kitchen of the student apartment. We became close-or at least I thought so. Everything collapsed when she officially announced her relationship with Ethan on Instagram.
I had no idea what he told her. Perhaps it was something I had never said before, or perhaps it was the same set of tricks he used to manipulate people’s hearts.
No matter what he said, Chloe changed from that day on. She stopped texting me and coming to our shared elective course. I became invisible in her circle of friends.
One day, during a break in biology lab, I suddenly realized that the bank card in my jacket pocket was missing. It contained my living expenses for the entire semester, gathered through part-time jobs and scholarships.
I almost lost my mind as I searched the corridor of the laboratory building. Finally, when I was almost on the verge of collapse, I saw her bag in the public lounge. Something drove me to do it. Maybe it was intuition, or maybe it was despair, but I opened her tote bag.
However, she came in right at that moment. “What are you doing?” she shouted before turning around and shouting down the entire corridor, “She’s stealing my wallet!” She picked up that wallet as if showing off some treasure. “This is the Christmas present I’m going to give Ethan!” she yelled, her voice sharp enough for the whole building to hear.
Her voice was the first time I felt the cut of humiliation.
From that day on, I knew I was no longer Chloe’s ‘friend’.
Of course, no one believed me.
The password of that card was Ethan’s birthday. I never changed it. There was some scholarship balance on the card, but I lost all of it. I started working at a bar outside the campus to make up for the lost money. It was located on an inconspicuous street corner in the San Frando Bay Area. Illicit things were always happening at night, and the wages were all paid in cash. There was no contract and no guarantee, but I had no choice.
That was also where I met Zach for the first time, back when he was my stepbrother’s mortal enemy back then. As he walked into the dimly lit student bar, it was as if the whole crowd made way for him.
He wore a custom wool coat, with a glass of Macallan whiskey in his left hand and a phone in his right hand. His eyes were full of the arrogance and aloofness typical of Hudson City’s Upper East Siders.
He glanced at me as if he were reading an off-track news headline. “Aren’t you a top student at Berkel? What’s the matter? How can you go bankrupt on a scholarship? Does your brother not care about you?”
I did not respond.
He raised his eyebrows, pulled out a black card from his card wallet, and slapped it on the bar counter. He said flatly, “I have a job for you. The pay is good. You just need to dress nicely, show up on time at some social occasions, and pretend we’re dating.”
Everything started from there.
I became Zach’s ‘contract girlfriend’. He used me to fend off the blind dates arranged by his family and to appease the prying eyes of real estate executives. I accompanied him to Hudson City Real Estate Association’s charity balls, banker’s equestrian charity auctions, and private party in the Hamptons.
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Chapter 7
+25 Bonus
He ‘paid’ me with cash and indifference. Every time he put his arm around my waist and kissed the ends of my hair in front of
people under a bunch of flashlights, I would tell myself that I could leave at any time. I did not realize that I had already fallen in
too deep.
