My boyfriend suffered from severe clinical depression. Between his weekly psychiatric therapy sessions and his prescription medications, his treatment cost over $3,000 a month. To keep him afloat, I worked myself into the ground, taking on endless freelance graphic design commissions while grinding 12-hour shifts for DoorDash. My friends constantly warned me I was going to literally work myself to death. Until one day, I snagged an incredibly high-paying delivery order going to an ultra-exclusive, gated billionaire community. I carefully carried the $2,500 premium Omakase sushi order to the front door, offering it respectfully to the customer. But when I looked up... I saw my supposedly depressed, struggling boyfriend, who was supposed to be at his therapy session, standing in the doorway. He looked at me in absolute, horrified shock. 01 "Aren't you supposed to be at the clinic, Liam?" I stared at the breathtakingly luxurious, custom-built mansion behind him. My left hand gripped the handles of the takeout bag so tightly my knuckles turned white, aching from the pressure. Even though it was nearly 100 degrees outside, my entire body was violently shivering, as if I had been plunged into an ice bath. A place like this... I had only ever seen mansions like this in Hollywood movies. "Chloe, please, I'm so sorry. Let me explain. Dr. Miller had a sudden emergency this afternoon..." "I'm just visiting a friend's house. I swear." Caught completely off guard, Liam lost his composure and frantically grabbed my uniform sleeve. It was his signature move whenever he needed to apologize. It worked flawlessly every single time. But today, it meant absolutely nothing. I coldly slapped his hand away. The custom-tailored, designer linen shirt he was wearing had no visible logo, but the cruel irony was that it fit him perfectly—far better than the cheap, thrift-store clothes he usually wore. It exuded the effortless, old-money aura of a trust-fund kid. I lowered my eyes, pulling out my phone to open the Mount Sinai Hospital appointment app. I saw that Dr. Miller, his psychiatrist, had completely open availability for the entire afternoon. I didn't even have the energy to call out his lie. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, I forced my mind to clear. Maintaining a deadpan expression, I kept my voice terrifyingly calm: "Is this fun for you, Liam?" "Pretending to be a broke, depressed, struggling kid while you're with me. Acting like you couldn't even afford a $5 Starbucks coffee... when in reality, you're a billionaire heir who drops $2,500 on a single lunch order!" My lips trembled. I glared at the man standing in front of me with pure, unadulterated resentment, completely unaware of when the tears had started pouring down my face. "You really... you played me for an absolute idiot." "Two thousand five hundred dollars! I would have to run hundreds of deliveries... I'd have to work for months just to earn that..." The most agonizing, hilarious irony of it all? The only app running in the background of my phone... Was the text message I had sent Liam half an hour ago. I told him I was going to treat us tonight and make his favorite homemade chicken noodle soup. Because the customer in this ultra-rich neighborhood had been incredibly generous and tipped me $100 on the app. I just never, in my wildest nightmares, imagined that the $100 tip was given to me by Liam himself. 02 Liam used to hold me in the dead of night, whispering that the only thing in the universe he would never doubt was my love for him. He said even his own parents' love wasn't as pure and unconditional as mine. Those intimate whispers used to fill me with joy. I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world to find genuine, unfiltered devotion in a society where true love felt nonexistent. But looking back at it now... No one in their right mind could possibly be as stupid as me. Risking heatstroke riding a bike in 100-degree weather just to earn a $5 delivery bonus, desperately trying to scrape together enough cash to cover his medical bills for the month. "I haven't slept more than five hours a night in months. I literally dream about the day you finally recover." "And you knew exactly what I was doing for you. Didn't you?" My voice cracked, choked by rising sobs. The facade of calm on Liam's face finally shattered. His eyes reddened, and he gave a slow, agonizing nod. In our cramped, claustrophobic, 300-square-foot studio apartment, where we had to walk thirty minutes just to reach the nearest subway station... He watched me exhaust myself to the bone. He watched me break pennies in half trying to budget our meals. He watched me live in absolute squalor while desperately paying to support his twisted, fake "poverty simulation." All to cure a clinical depression that he completely made up for his little roleplay. He watched the entire thing unfold from above, completely detached, like a god observing a pathetic ant. "I'll wire a massive sum of money to your bank account. Consider it compensation." "I'm so sorry, Chloe. I really messed up." Liam hung his head, his eyes filled with guilt and profound panic. Realizing there was absolutely no lie he could invent to dig his way out of this, he simply gave up. My fingers stiffened as I reached into my pocket and pulled out the crumpled, half-meter-long receipt for the sushi order. It listed the most elite, imported cuts of Wagyu and Toro available. I crushed it into a tight ball and hurled it as hard as I could directly at his face. Liam didn't dodge. His expression was a horrific mix of grief and devastating regret. The central air conditioning blowing from the open mansion door sent a chilling breeze over my sweat-soaked skin. Amidst the buzzing of the summer cicadas, I heard the sharp, rhythmic clicking of heels approaching from inside the house. Followed instantly by a whiny, flirtatious female voice: "Liam, babe? Is the food not here yet? I'm literally starving to death!" 03 Liam and I both froze. His expression violently twisted in panic. We both turned our heads to see a young woman wearing a sheer, silk lace slip dress walking toward the door. Liam frantically stepped forward to block her. "Why did you come out? I'll be right inside, baby, just go back in." But the girl seemed determined to see what was going on. She stepped around Liam, flashing a brilliant, saccharine smile at me. Her large, doe-like eyes held a glimmer of recognition, quickly followed by absolute, undisguised contempt. "Who is this...?" Nobody answered. Seeing our dead silence, the corners of her lips curled into a smirk. She casually, possessively linked her arm through Liam's, subtly tugging the strap of her blush-pink, translucent slip dress down her shoulder. The dark, bruised hickeys on her neck, and the curves visible beneath the silk... were impossible to ignore. She leaned her entire body weight against Liam, looking completely boneless and incredibly intimate. The man's panicked, terrified gaze darted back to me. I turned my head away in absolute despair, squeezing my eyes shut. My hair, soaked in sweat, stuck uncomfortably to my cheeks. My temples throbbed with a sharp, spiking agony. Even if I was legally brain-dead, I would know exactly what had been happening inside that house. I originally thought I was just the unlucky idiot caught in a billionaire's poverty roleplay. But looking at them now, I realized I was also the pathetic side-character in a rich kid's twisted romance drama. It was absolutely, profoundly sickening. I didn't want to stay there a second longer. I turned around, packed up my insulated delivery bag, and prepared to leave. But the girl suddenly called out to me: "Wait a second. Are you the pathetic little 'slum-girl' Liam was playing around with off-campus?" "I didn't recognize you in that disgusting delivery uniform, but... you're Chloe Vance from the Liberal Arts department, aren't you?" 04 I stopped moving and turned back to stare at her. After thirty seconds, I finally placed her face. She was a senior, one year ahead of me. The gorgeous, ultra-wealthy, universally worshipped "It Girl" of our university: Stella Dupont. But we had bad blood. Because she used her family's massive corporate donations to pull strings behind the scenes and successfully stole the low-income, merit-based university grant that was supposed to go to me. Because of that, I never sucked up to Stella like the rest of the student body did. Seeing the dark, hostile look in my eyes, Stella’s grip on Liam's arm tightened even more. She put on an exaggerated, delighted expression, her voice dripping with venomous sweetness: "I can't believe it, Liam! Remember last year when I casually complained to you about how annoying and stuck-up that fake-smart junior was?" "You asked me a few questions about her, and then you actually went and ruined Chloe Vance's life for me! I have to say, your methods are absolutely brilliant. Truly incredible..." Stella tilted her chin up, glaring at me like I was an insect, and continued: "So brilliant that you managed to play Chloe Vance—the untouchable academic prodigy of the Liberal Arts department—like an absolute, pathetic dog." My hands, hanging limply by my sides, slowly curled into fists. The freezing air conditioning from the mansion hit my skin, but it didn't cool the volcanic rage erupting in my chest. To these people, the futures, emotions, money, and blood, sweat, and tears of ordinary people were just annoying weeds growing by the side of the road. They didn't just ignore us—they actively went out of their way to crush us under their designer shoes and spit on us for fun. Stella leaned up and kissed Liam's cheek—a reward for his successful, years-long psychological torture of me. She shot me a deeply provocative, mocking look. Then, as if suddenly remembering a hilarious inside joke, her expression turned bizarrely manic as she asked: "Oh, Chloe. Did Liam tell you he suffered from severe clinical depression?" I furrowed my brow, not denying it. Seeing my reaction, the woman practically doubled over in hysterical laughter. The words that spilled from her mouth sent a wave of absolute, freezing horror straight into my bones. "That's because I told him... that you had a younger brother who committed suicide because of severe clinical depression." "I told him that as long as he claimed to have depression, you would be stupid enough to fall for it instantly." "And look at that. I was right." 05 The second the words left her mouth, the air in the entryway went completely dead. The only sound left was the buzzing of the cicadas. My brain literally exploded. Every last shred of rational thought I possessed evaporated. I bit down on my lower lip so hard I tasted blood, ripped my delivery helmet off my head, gripped it by the strap, and viciously hurled it directly at Liam's face. If I swallowed this kind of humiliation and just walked away, I might as well just lay down and die. My chest heaving violently, I screamed at the top of my lungs: "Depression, huh?! Pretending to be broke, huh?! You love targeting people's deepest trauma, don't you?!" "You absolutely deserved it when your parents ignored you! You deserved to watch your father beat your mother half to death right in front of you! Why the fuck didn't he just beat you to death while he was at it?!" "I'M GOING TO BEAT YOU TO DEATH FOR HIM RIGHT NOW!" During the year Liam and I lived together—whether it was all an act on his end or not—we did share our deepest vulnerabilities with each other. So I knew perfectly well that his ultimate, unforgivable trauma was the profound neglect and abuse he suffered from his parents, and the fact that he grew up utterly devoid of familial love. And right now, that trauma became my ultimate weapon. I weaponized his deepest pain and used it to butcher him. Before either of them could react, I threw myself forward, raining a barrage of savage, brutal punches directly onto Liam's face. Fueled by blinding, explosive rage, I was gasping for air. The chronic sleep deprivation and physical exhaustion from working three jobs caught up to me, and my vision started swimming. The exact second Stella brought up my little brother, Noah... the fragile dam holding back my sanity completely shattered. He was my reverse scale. The one thing in this universe absolutely no one was allowed to touch. Until Stella forcefully dragged me away from him, Liam didn't raise a single finger to defend himself. He covered his mouth. His hands were covered in blood. "Liam! Are you okay?! I'm calling the cops right now!" "This crazy bitch has lost her mind! How dare she hit you?! I'm going to call my dad and have her..." Stella's furious, panicked voice broke into a sob. But Liam grabbed her wrist, shaking his head slowly. "Don't. Stop." "This is all... my fault. I owe her this." He brushed his messy, blood-stained hair out of his eyes, stood up straight, and walked over to me. He pulled a heavy, solid-metal Amex Black Card from his pocket and handed it to me. "The PIN is your birthday. I know the damage I've done is permanent, and I can never fix it, but... just take it. I am so sorry." I let out a harsh, freezing laugh. The look I gave him was filled with absolutely nothing but pure, unadulterated hatred and ice. "Go to hell." I violently snatched the Black Card from his fingers, dropped those three words, turned around, and walked away. 06 The card had $110,000 on it. After demanding my final paycheck from the delivery app's contractor company, I officially quit my job. My 250-square-foot studio apartment. You could see the entire place in a single glance. Back then, the reason Liam and I moved out of the university dorms and rented this place was because he claimed his depressive, psychosomatic symptoms were getting worse, and he desperately needed me by his side every day. Honestly, I wasn't completely defenseless when Liam forcefully, aggressively barged into my life. But when I saw that he suffered from the exact same agonizing illness as my little brother... my heart softened. My judgment blurred. Looking back, it was impossible to tell if my feelings for him were actually love, or just a desperate, manic attempt to compensate for the infinite, crushing guilt I felt over my brother's death. I was obsessed. I was violently, obsessively determined to cure Liam's depression. It felt like if I could just save him... the suffocating nightmare of my past would finally let me breathe. I suppose, over the course of a year, we accumulated quite a few things. But looking at all the matching couples' items, the coffee mugs, the watches, the little anniversary souvenirs... they felt like acid burning my eyes. So I threw every single one of them into the trash. Listening to the rattling hum of the ancient, window-unit AC, I stared at the ceiling. Finally freed from the grueling, endless exhaustion of working myself to death, I fell into a deep, heavy sleep. In my dreams, I couldn't even count how many times I saw Noah lying in that bathtub. He lay there, completely drained of color, submerged in deep crimson water. His skin was as pale as porcelain. He had no warmth. He had no pulse. The empty pill bottle had tumbled from his limp fingertips. His long, delicate eyelashes were resting softly against his cheeks—looking exactly the way he did when he waited up for me while I studied, dozing off on the couch. Only this time, he would never open his eyes again. He would never rub his sleepy eyes and ask me when I was coming to bed. On his phone, he had deleted every single chat history with every person he knew. The only thing left was a final message sent to me: "I'm so sorry, Chloe." Along with a Venmo transfer for $512.43. It was every single penny he had to his name. That year, the spring flowers were blooming brighter than ever. Noah, who was brilliant, kind, and possessed all the potential in the world, chose the most beautiful season to leave it. And I... I was permanently trapped in that spring forever. 07 The rustling of plastic bags near the front door jolted me awake. A man wearing a black dress shirt was crouching next to the trash can, suspiciously digging through the garbage. "Who's there?" The man froze, then slowly turned around. It was Liam. He was wearing a surgical mask, and there were several white bandages on his face from where I had beaten him. I rubbed my pounding temples, completely forgetting that he still had a key to the apartment. The matching rings, the coffee mugs, the watches, and the souvenirs I had thrown away that afternoon had all been meticulously dug out of the trash and lined up perfectly on the floor. "Why the hell are you digging through my garbage?" Hearing my voice, Liam lowered his eyes, his expression unreadable. "I just came to pack a few last things before I leave." "These are all cheap, worthless garbage. A billionaire heir actually wants them?" I sat up on the bed, casually glancing around the room to see if there was anything else important I needed to pack. Now that it was over, I planned to just move back into my university dorm. I was going to terminate the lease on this place tomorrow. Liam held the cheap, $50 silver couple's ring in his hand, gently rubbing his thumb over the metal. His voice was low and devastatingly lonely: "Chloe, I know you don't believe me, but I really, genuinely loved you. I really only trusted you..." "No one in my entire life has ever loved me with that kind of pure, raw honesty. I didn't want to lose you." I waved my hand dismissively, letting out a dark scoff. The memory of what happened this afternoon flashed through my mind like a cruel joke. "Pure honesty? What, because you loved me so much, you purposely manipulated me into delivering the food for your post-sex meal with your mistress? Am I supposed to get on my knees and thank you?" "I can explain what happened with Stella! We never slept together! Me dating her in the first place was just a casual agreement from way back then!" "And I've wanted to break up with her for months! I realized that the person I truly, actually love is..." "There is absolutely no need to discuss this anymore." I cut him off, my voice freezing cold, my eyes completely dead. The leaky faucet in the bathroom dripped rhythmically into a plastic bucket. The plumbing had been broken for years. To save a few dollars on the water bill, I always kept a bucket under it to catch the drips. The money I saved was literal pennies. When a fake, manufactured love is finally exposed, the words they use to justify it just sound pathetic and hilarious. The moment his sick, twisted psychological trap was exposed, regardless of whether his feelings were genuine or not, an uncrossable, infinite abyss had permanently opened between us. "Honestly, Liam. When you used the exact method my little brother used to kill himself as a prop to manipulate me into loving you... did you ever stop to think that the karma would eventually boomerang right back and hit you in the head?" "What do you mean?" I didn't answer. I just furrowed my brow, opened the front door, and gestured for him to get out. Seeing my utterly resolute, emotionless expression, a flash of deep, agonizing hurt crossed his eyes. He hastily shoved all the items from the floor into his designer backpack and stood up. "Stop pretending to have clinical depression." "Because for every single sociopath like you who fakes it for attention, the stigma against depression gets exponentially worse. And people who actually, desperately need help... get completely ignored." People like Noah. After a long, suffocating silence, the man standing in front of me slowly nodded his head. Then, Liam reached behind the door and pulled out a grocery bag filled with fresh pork ribs and lotus root. He had seen the text I sent him earlier about making his favorite soup. "Could you... make me lotus root soup one last time?" "No. I'm sure your family's private Michelin-star chef makes it infinitely better." "I only like the way you make it." "Chloe... why can't you just trust me one more time? Why won't you give me one last chance?" His voice cracked, choked with tears. I never imagined that Liam, having reclaimed his status as an untouchable, ultra-wealthy billionaire heir, would ever wear an expression of absolute, desperate begging on his face. Right now, in this exact moment, his behavior completely contradicted the rules of his twisted little "poverty simulation" game. Regardless of whether his tears were real or fake, I remained completely, utterly unmoved. I stared at him in dead silence. He knew I was rejecting him. He reached his hand out, desperately wanting to grab my arm, but eventually let it drop to his side. Before he walked out the door, Liam's eyes were bloodshot. He turned back and looked at me one last time. "Do you still love me?" "No." "Could you ever... love me again?" "Never."
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