My girlfriend, Lauren, once told me she could see a number floating above people's heads. A "need index" from some cosmic system, she called it. A real-time gauge of how much they depended on her. In the beginning, she looked at me with red-rimmed eyes, her voice trembling. "Your number is only thirty, Ian. Do you even love me?" I told her, "Not needing someone to survive doesn't mean you don't love them." But then the shifts started. She began holding her umbrella over her assistant, Connor, in the middle of a downpour, driving miles out of her way to drop him off at his apartment. When I asked her about it, she brushed it off. "Don't overthink it. His number was in the high seventies. He just really needed the help." It went on like that until the day I lay in bed, burning with a fever, while she chose to go shopping with him. "Your number is low," she said, her hand already on the doorknob. "He’s in a crisis right now. I’ll help him finish buying his things, and then I’ll come right back to take care of you." She pulled the door shut. I closed my eyes, letting the quiet settle into my bones, and reached for my phone. "Dad," I murmured into the receiver. "For the holidays this year... I’m coming home alone." … I didn't know how long I slept, but a parched throat eventually woke me. The soft beep of the front door's smart lock echoed through the apartment. I didn't turn around. Lauren stepped in, her slippers making quiet, heavy thuds against the floor before she stopped just behind me. "How are you feeling? You didn't reply to my texts." I stayed silent. She stepped closer, reaching out to touch my forehead. As she leaned in, a faint scent drifted from her clothes—the distinct, woodsy cologne that Connor always wore. I pulled my face away. Her hand froze in midair, stiffening for a second before slowly dropping to her side. "Right," she said, her voice dropping to a cool, detached register. "Looking at your number, I shouldn't have worried." Her eyes drifted upward, lingering on the empty space just above my head. Always there. "Can't you just turn it off?" My voice was raspy, like coarse sandpaper. "Can't you just look at "me"?" I remembered her telling me once that the system could be disabled. Lauren fell silent for a few seconds, offering no answer. Instead, she set a plastic bag down on the coffee table. "Fever meds. Take them." I waited a moment, then dragged myself over to the table and crouched down. My hands were shaking so badly I struggled to untie the tight knot in the plastic. "Connor got them for you," she added. "He knew you were sick and grabbed them on his way back." My fingers kept fumbling with the plastic. If this had happened a few months ago, I probably would have pushed the bag back across the table and told her I could buy my own medicine. But today, the exhaustion was crushing. Even a plastic knot felt like an opponent I didn't have the strength to fight. She stood over me, watching my clumsy attempts, before speaking again. "Try to be a little nicer to him. He's just a sweet kid, fresh out of college. He doesn't have your experience." The bag finally gave way, revealing a box of Advil, DayQuil, and some cooling gel sheets. And two slips of paper. One was a receipt from the local pharmacy; the other was a purchase slip from a luxury jewelry boutique. The timestamp read 4:24 PM. The total was a number with too many digits. I stared at the jewelry receipt for two seconds, said nothing, and tucked it back beneath the medicine boxes. I peeled open a cooling sheet and pressed it to my forehead. The icy chill sank into my skin, offering a brief, numbing counterpoint to the throbbing in my temples. I stood up and walked toward the bedroom. "I'm tired. Sleep in the guest room tonight." Without waiting for her reply, I shut the door and lay back down on the bed. The apartment fell into a heavy quiet. Sometime later, the phone rang in the living room. Lauren answered it, her voice dropping to a low murmur, punctuated by soft, easy laughter that gradually drifted further away. Then, the front door clicked shut. I turned onto my side, facing the blank wall, and pulled the duvet over my head. The phone vibrated beneath my pillow. I left it there. By the next morning, the fever had broken, though my throat still felt raw. I leaned against the headboard and pulled out my phone. The vibration from the night before had been a voice note from my dad. I tapped play. "Lauren's not coming with you? Is she busy? That's fine, work is important. We can always see each other next time. Don't worry about me, son." His voice was full of heavy pauses, though he tried to end on a cheerful note. I stared at the screen for a long time, scrolling upward through our chat. He had sent several photos of himself trying on clothes in front of a dusty mirror. A man who never bought anything for himself had tried on four different outfits, asking which one looked best for meeting his future daughter-in-law. There were also photos of food. He had practiced making pot roast because Lauren had mentioned liking it during a phone call months ago. "I'm getting better at it," he had written. "She'll love it." I could hear the eager, hopeful smile in his voice. I swallowed hard, listening to the voice note one more time, before typing back a brief reply: "She's just really busy lately." When I finally stepped out of the bedroom, Lauren was already gone. The plastic bag on the coffee table had been cleared away, the medicine boxes neatly arranged in its place. Next to them sat a bag of bagels and a cold latte. As I walked past the trash can, I caught a glimpse of the crumpled luxury receipt sitting right on top of the garbage. On the counter, a sticky note read: "Don't forget to eat breakfast." She hadn't bought me breakfast in months. Ever since she bound that system, she seemed to view tending to my needs as a waste of energy. Yet here she was, doing it again. I touched the bagel. It was ice-cold. I warmed it in the microwave, but every bite felt like swallowing glass. I stood there and forced myself to finish it. When I drove into the office parking lot, I spotted Connor stepping out of Lauren's passenger seat. He was holding a bag of hot takeout, blowing on his fingers to cool them down. Lauren locked the car and walked beside him. Neither of them looked in my direction as they headed into the elevator lobby. Around noon, I ran into Connor in the hallway. He looked as if he had been waiting for me. He hurried over, grabbing my arm. "Ian! Lauren asked me to pick out a holiday gift for her family. I'm terrible at this. Can you take a look?" He thrust his phone toward me. The screen showed his text thread with Lauren. Her contact name was saved as "Boss" followed by a blowing-kiss emoji. I didn't say anything. He scrolled up, showing me page after page of shopping screenshots. Under each one, he had typed questions: "Would your dad like this?" "Does your stepmom prefer red or navy?" Lauren’s replies were short and indifferent: "Sure," "Fine," or "You decide." I glanced at the prices. Combined, the gifts didn't cost a fraction of the amount on the receipt I'd seen in the trash. At the very top of the screen, there was a message from Lauren: "Just something simple is fine. Old people don't need expensive things." Connor’s thumb froze on the screen, as if he had only just realized I could see that part of the conversation. His expression turned awkward, a forced smile plastering onto his face. "Lauren is just... trying to save money," he mumbled. "She works so hard, you know." I looked at him, his synthetic smile unwavering. "She does," I said flatly. "So don't bother buying anything." His smile faltered. I stepped past him and walked away. When I got home that evening, Lauren was sitting on the living room sofa, her phone screen going dark just as I entered. She didn't waste any time. "Did you pick on Connor today?" I paused, my hand on my shoes, looking at her from across the room. "He told you?" "He said you told him not to buy the gifts. He spent all day researching them. Why would you throw his kindness back in his face like that?" She let out a heavy sigh. "I don't understand why you're being so difficult." I straightened up and placed my shoes on the rack. Sitting on top of the cabinet were two paper bags from a cheap department store—the exact items Connor had shown me on his phone. They had already been bought. "Kindness?" I asked, walking into the living room. "He did that research on company time, didn't he? You pay him for that." Lauren frowned. "And besides," I continued, "why is my secretary picking out holiday gifts for "my" parents?" She stayed silent for a moment before replying, "I just thought a younger guy might have a better sense of what people actually want." She paused, her voice dropping an octave. "And I asked you last month what we should get them, and you just said 'anything.' Your need index was only thirty-four when you said that, Ian. Connor just wanted me to buy him a coffee, and his number was seventy. You clearly didn't even care about the gifts. Why are you picking a fight over this now?" I stared at her. The warm, low light of the living room cast a sharp shadow across her jawline. Her eyes weren't looking at me—they were fixed on the empty air just above my head. Always measuring. Always calculating. "Thirty-four." She used to know exactly why I was like this. My biological mother was a violent alcoholic. After she split my dad’s lip so badly he couldn't speak normally for two weeks, I learned to make myself invisible. My stepmother was a kind, gentle woman, but the instinct to never impose, to never ask for anything, was already baked into my bones. I remembered high school, sitting on the cold bleachers, overhearing a group of classmates nearby. "He acts like he's too good for everyone. I offered to help him carry his books and he practically ran away." "Just a stuck-up prick. Good intentions are wasted on him." "Don't you know? His mom was a drunk who beat him, and his dad remarried." "No wonder he's so weird. Who would actually want to be friends with him?" They hadn't named me, but they didn't have to. Then Lauren's voice had cut through the whispers, sharp and clear. "But he gets top marks in every single class. He does it all on his own. Don't you think that's incredibly brave? I admire him. Could any of you do what he does?" Later, when we fell in love and I finally gathered the courage to tell her about my past, she had held me tightly, as if trying to shield a child. I was a head taller than her, and I had to look down to see her face. She had looked into my eyes and whispered, "You're independent because you had to survive, Ian. But you don't have to carry it alone anymore. I love who you are. Do whatever you want, you don't have to explain yourself to me." Then, she added five words I never forgot: "I’ll hold you up. I've got you." I had lived by those words for years. I wasn't that scared kid anymore, but letting myself depend on someone was still the hardest thing in the world. Lauren was the only person who had ever made me want to try. But she had forgotten all of it. A system, some numbers, and six months were all it took to erase it. I didn't bother explaining. I turned to walk back to the bedroom. As I passed the sofa, she grabbed my wrist. Her grip was tight, but her fingers were trembling. "Ian... why did your number drop so much?" She stared at me, panic flickering in her eyes. I paused. "How much?" Her mouth opened, but the words seemed to catch in her throat before escaping. "...Fifteen." "So there's still fifteen left," I said quietly, looking down at her hand on my wrist. "Does fifteen or thirty actually make a difference to you?" Silence fell over the room, stretching like a wire pulled to its absolute limit. Then, she let out a cold, bitter laugh. "Right. No difference. You wanted me to turn your numbers off? Fine. Consider them off. They only stress me out anyway. Don't expect me to care about your needs anymore." She stared at me, searching my face for some kind of crack. "Okay," I said. Her grip tightened further, her knuckles turning white. It hurt. "Are you done? Can you let me go now?" "..." "Let go." She slowly released her grip. I turned away. "Do you even want me to go home with you for Christmas?" her voice rose suddenly, sharp and loud. I stopped, keeping my back to her. "I literally put a major project on hold for this trip. If this is going to be your attitude, I'm not going." She paused, waiting for me to turn around, to beg, to explain. I didn't. She kept going, her pace quickening. "That project is too much for Connor to handle alone. He’ll be working through the holidays. I already feel terrible about it. I can only imagine how high his need index will be—" "—probably over eighty by then," I finished for her. The room went dead silent. I stared at the blank wall at the end of the hallway. Smooth, sterile, unyielding. I had already bought my ticket home. Alone. But hearing her say she wasn't coming still left a cold, hollow ache in my chest. I remembered last Christmas. She had rested her head on my shoulder, her ears flushed red, asking when we could make it official. "Give me a title, Ian," she had teased. Now... I turned around. "Lauren." My voice was flat, devoid of emotion. "If his number gets high enough... high enough that he wants to sleep with you. Will you do it?" She didn't speak. A moment later, she let out a short, scoffing laugh, as if she had just heard something utterly absurd. "Ian," she said, her tone icy. "Do you hear yourself?" I didn't answer. "Connor and I are boss and employee. He works hard, he helps out, and you turn it into some cheap affair? Me showing some basic care to my staff is cheating to you?" Was it just "basic care"? The umbrella, the rides, the lattes, the luxury necklace. Those were just the things I had happened to see. "I'm asking about the system. If that day comes, what do you choose?" "You're putting me on trial for a hypothetical?" She laughed, frustrated. "Then let me ask you: if you weren't so paranoid, would we even be fighting like this?" She stepped closer. "Have some empathy. Imagine being a kid fresh out of school, and your boss treats you like dirt. How would he feel?" I looked at her. "You've never asked how I feel." "I can see how you feel! It's right there in that pathetic little number above your head! What do you want me to do? Beg for the attention of someone who doesn't even want it?" Her chest heaved. "Just give me a straight answer. Is it that hard?" She glared at me, her breathing ragged. "No! I wouldn't! Happy now?" She stormed over to the entryway, grabbed her boots, and snatched the two cheap gift bags from the rack, slamming them onto the floor. "I’m leaving on a two-week business trip. I won't be back until after Christmas." She opened the door. "You better think long and hard about this if you still want me to show up at your dad's place." The door slammed shut so hard the walls vibrated. Then, silence. I stared at the door for a long time before turning back. It was better this way. I sat on the edge of the bed and looked down at my hands. I had been clenching them so hard that the color hadn't returned to my fingers. They felt numb, but I knew the feeling would come back eventually. I began to pack. I had lived in this apartment for two years, but everything I owned fit into a few storage bags. The next morning, I handed in my resignation. The HR manager joked, "Going to be a house husband now?" I smiled, not correcting him. "Just don't tell Lauren yet." During my final days, I went to work as usual. Nobody noticed anything different. On my last day, I took my accumulated leave. I spent the afternoon buying Christmas gifts for my parents. When I returned to the apartment, only my single suitcase remained. I walked over to the front door's keypad and pressed the reset sequence. "Fingerprint deleted," the system chimed softly. I looked back one last time. The decorative pillows were perfectly aligned on the sofa. The box of Advil sat on the coffee table. I left everything she had ever bought me behind. The wheels of my suitcase rolled over the threshold. I pulled the door shut, quietly, letting the latch click into place without a sound.
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