My separation anxiety wasn’t just a quirky personality flaw—it was a crippling, suffocating panic that clawed at my chest the moment I was left alone. For five years, Lester and I had lived in different cities, separated by hundreds of miles. Every single night without fail, I needed to hear his voice on the phone just to fall asleep. No matter how exhausted he was, no matter how early his morning alarm was set, he always stayed on the line until my breathing turned slow and even. Until last night. I was walking home late after pulling an involuntary shift at the office. The streetlights along the alley were dead, leaving the narrow passage draped in pitch-black shadows. Terrified, I called him, hoping his voice would be my shield against the dark. Instead, I was met with icy, restless irritation. “Bonnie was right about you,” Lester snapped, his tone heavy with exhaustion and contempt. “You’re suffocatingly clingy, Cathy. I’m doing this for your own good—if I don’t force you to figure this out, you’re never going to learn how to be an adult.” I clutched the phone tighter, my knuckles white. “Lester, please, it’s pitch black out here—” “And Bonnie is a light sleeper,” he cut in coldly. “She needs her rest. From now on, let a sleep-tracker AI talk you down at night.” Bonnie was my childhood best friend—and his self-proclaimed “one of the guys.” She had recently fallen on hard times and moved into his apartment temporarily. What Lester didn’t know was that the very second he hung up on me, a thick, calloused palm slammed over my mouth from behind, dragging me backward into the dark. … “What did I tell you? I knew Cathy couldn’t handle a single night alone. She’ll pull whatever pathetic stunt she can think of to trick me into running back.” When Lester finally arrived at the precinct after the officers called him, his first words weren’t a desperate “Are you okay?” They were a sneer. Bonnie let out a theatrical sigh, reaching into her jacket pocket and pulling out a crisp fifty-dollar bill. “Fine, fine. You really do know her inside out. Here’s your money.” I sat frozen on a cold metal chair in the station lobby, my hair matted, my clothes torn, my eyes staring blankly at the scuffed linoleum floor. To them, my terror was nothing more than the punchline to a casual bet. Lester walked over, his shadow looming over me, his face dark with annoyance. “You’re not a toddler anymore, Cathy. Claiming you were almost assaulted just to get the police to play along with your little drama? Don’t you think that’s a bit childish?” He gestured vaguely between himself and Bonnie. “Making us drive three hours in the middle of the night just to humor you? If you don’t want to sleep, does that mean no one else gets to?” Bonnie stepped in immediately, stepping into her favorite role as the gentle mediator. “Alright, Lester, take it easy on her. Cathy is just attached to you—what’s so wrong with that?” As she spoke, she casually reached for the black velvet scrunchie wrapped around Lester’s wrist, using it to gather my disheveled hair into a ponytail. I couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment it had started, but over the past few months, Lester had formed a habit of carrying women’s essentials with him wherever he went. Hair ties, tampons, an extra cardigan in his backseat. But without exception, every single item was tailored specifically to Bonnie’s tastes. When we finally walked out of the precinct, muscle memory took over. I walked toward the passenger side of Lester’s car and pulled the handle. The door swung open, revealing an interior completely overhauled in soft pastel pink. “Pretty, isn’t it?” Bonnie slung an arm around Lester’s neck, flashing me a triumphant, dazzling smile. “We made a bet last weekend, he lost, and he actually re-did the whole interior just like I told him to.” I stared at the pink leather, a cold sensation spreading through my chest. I had asked him dozens of times over the years to change the depressing slate-gray interior of his car to pink. Every time, he had shot me down, calling it tacky and impractical. “Besides,” he used to say, “you barely sit in my car a few times a year. Stop trying to control everything.” He was a man who despised boundary-crossing and hated change. Yet now, he wore Bonnie’s backseat-driving like a second skin. Bonnie slid effortlessly into the front passenger seat. I stood on the pavement for a long, quiet second before opening the rear door and slipping into the back. Throughout the drive, the two of them filled the front seat with animated chatter—debating the tragic ending of a movie they had watched together, arguing over which high-end bistro had the best brunch. The speakers hummed with an indie-pop playlist that Bonnie had dropped into our group chat days ago. It wasn’t even the genre Lester usually listened to. Meanwhile, the foreign folk album I had recommended in that same chat weeks ago still sat there, unacknowledged, without a single reply. They had driven all this way under the pretense of picking me up, yet I had been relegated to invisible background noise. Neither of them noticed that in the dark of the backseat, my head was bowed over my phone, my thumb flying across the screen: “Mr. Becker, I’ve changed my mind. Is that overseas project in London still available?” When the car finally pulled up to the curb outside my apartment complex, the laughter in the front seat slowly tapered off. Lester glanced into the rearview mirror, his brow furrowing with impatience. “Well? Why aren’t you getting out?” My voice was flat, hollowed out. “You didn’t unlock the doors.” Lester blinked, caught off guard. Bonnie slapped her forehead, turning around to flash me an apologetic, playful pout. “Oh gosh, I’m so sorry! We were so caught up talking, I completely forgot. Opening it now!” She pressed the unlock button on the dash with the casual authority of a woman operating her own vehicle. I didn’t move immediately. Bonnie glanced at Lester, making a dramatic show of unbuckling her seatbelt. “Cathy looks completely exhausted. Lester, you should go upstairs with her. I can just call a cab and stay at a hotel nearby.” “A young woman staying in a hotel alone at this hour? Are you insane?” Lester instantly reached out, grabbing her arm and pulling her back into her seat. He turned his head to glare at me in the back. “Cathy, you’ve dragged us through enough drama tonight. You can handle sleeping alone for one night. I’m going to go stay at the hotel with Bonnie to make sure she’s safe.” Bonnie couldn’t possibly stay in a hotel alone. But I had lived completely by myself for five years, and not once had he considered that unsafe. Before I could say a word, Lester was already unlocking his door, stepping out, and firmly escorting me out of the vehicle. I stood on the curb, watching the taillights of the car fade into the darkness, the bitter taste of betrayal coating my tongue. That car was supposed to be his dream gift to me. Years ago, when he was grinding through eighty-hour workweeks, he promised that once he bought it, he would drive me to work every single day so I’d never have to cram into a crowded subway again. Later, watching him burn out trying to save up, I emptied my own savings account to bridge the gap. Five thousand dollars wasn’t a fortune, but it was every cent I had painfully scraped together from working graveyard shifts. And now, another woman sat in the passenger seat I had paid for. It wasn’t until the following morning that Lester returned. He walked into my apartment carrying a bag of fresh pastries, stepping up behind me where I stood by the kitchen counter and wrapping his arms around my waist. “I was just worried about your friend last night, that’s why I stayed at the hotel with her,” he murmured gently, resting his chin on my shoulder. “I did it so you wouldn’t have to worry about her either. Don’t overthink it, babe. A tomboy like her isn’t even my type—she’s built like a teenage boy.” A flash of memory hit me like a physical blow—a story Bonnie had posted on Instagram at two in the morning. It was a photo of Lester asleep, his messy dark hair splayed across her arm. Her caption had read: “Some people have no shame. A giant king-sized bed and he STILL insists on crowding into my space!” My mind snapped back to the present. I stared at his reflection in the windowpane and asked quietly, “You say she’s built like a boy. Have you seen her?” The air in the kitchen instantly curdled into a suffocating silence. It grew so quiet I could hear the faint, uneven rhythm of his breathing. I reached down and peeled his hands off my waist. The moment his grip slipped, he exploded. “Catherine! I brought you breakfast, I’m trying to talk to you nicely, what more do you want from me?!” he yelled, throwing his hands up in frustration. “You lied to drag us three hours out of our way, and now you’re interrogating me? You don’t have separation anxiety—you’re completely unhinged!” The word hit me like a slap to the face. My eyes widened, staring at him as if he were a complete stranger. My separation anxiety hadn’t come out of nowhere. It was born on the night my mentally unstable mother murdered my father right in front of my eight-year-old eyes. I had watched the life leave his body, and from that terrifying moment on, sleeping alone in the dark became a living nightmare. When Lester first learned my story, he had wrapped me in his arms and wept with me, whispering again and again: “I will never leave you. I will never abandon you…” I had built my entire life around his promises. I had cherished his love like a sacred truth. And in the end, all it bought me was his disgust. I stared at him, the words “We’re done” rising from the depths of my heart, gathering at the back of my throat. But before I could speak them, his phone chimed loudly with an incoming call. He snatched it out of his pocket and answered immediately. Within seconds, the dark storm on his face evaporated, replaced by an easy, relaxed smile. He hung up, paused at the door, and casually tossed an instruction over his shoulder: “Tomorrow, the three of us are flying down to Austin for a quick weekend trip. Make sure you book your flight. Bonnie’s extending an olive branch here, Cathy—just take it and drop the attitude.” Not a single apology. Not a shred of comfort. He was simply notifying me of my place in his schedule, as he always did. It was always the same routine: the two of them would chatter and plan, settle every detail, and then passively inform me of the final itinerary. I was nothing more than an inconvenient, budget-friendly pack mule brought along to carry their luggage. And in the end, they still found me too burdensome to deal with. So I didn’t buy a ticket to Austin. Instead, I booked a one-way international ticket to London. Lester didn’t realize I wasn’t on the plane until he landed in Texas. When his calls started coming through, I declined them one by one. He sent me a string of furious texts accusing me of being a “buzzkill,” but my absence didn’t do a single thing to dampen their vacation. Bonnie’s social media feed updated relentlessly. They took a cable car up the mountain to a famous shrine. Lester—a devout atheist who usually scoffed at spiritualism—paid a hundred and fifty dollars to buy her a personalized love-fortune charm. Lester—who hated being in front of a camera—gladly posed for four separate photo grids, smiling softly as Bonnie snapped picture after picture. Whenever I had begged him to take photos with me on our trips, he would click the shutter once with a scowl, complaining, “I don’t get why women need to document every useless second.” Then, Bonnie posted a link to an event hosted by a high-end mall in downtown Austin: a “Couples Endurance Hug Challenge,” where the pair that held on the longest won a giant, limited-edition designer plushie. The cover photo showed Lester and Bonnie holding the massive stuffed bear, beaming radiantly at the camera. I clicked the “like” button under the post. A split second later, Lester’s call flashed across my screen. I answered. “We only entered that stupid contest to win that doll for you, Cathy!” Lester snapped defensively before I could speak. “Twenty minutes of standing there holding her—you have no idea how agonizing that was for me.” Bonnie immediately grabbed the phone from him, her voice dripping with playful complaint. “Cathy, I swear he was squeezing me so tight I could barely breathe! If it weren’t for my favorite girl in the world, I would “never” have let a smelly guy hug me for that long!” “For me.” Always under the grand banner of doing things “for my sake”, they crossed every line of respect and fidelity. Lester had taken Bonnie into his home without my consent “so I wouldn’t worry about her.” Bonnie attached herself to his hip twenty-four hours a day “to help me keep an eye on my boyfriend.” And now, they had wrapped their bodies together in public for twenty minutes for a toy I had never even asked for. The suffocating pressure that had been building in my chest finally ruptured. “Lester,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “Let’s break up.” Silence deadened the line. Lester’s tone turned from defensive to utterly incredulous. “Are you seriously breaking up with me over a twenty-minute hug? What kind of joke is this, Cathy? We’re practically brothers!” In the background, Bonnie snatched the phone back, her voice suddenly fragile and innocent. “Cathy, please, we’re just good buddies! I’m so sorry, please don’t be mad at Lester…” “Why are you apologizing to her?!” Lester’s voice boomed through the receiver, sharp and vicious. “She’s constantly paranoid, looking for monsters under the bed! She’s inherited every last drop of her mother’s lunacy—stop walking on eggshells around her!” “Click.” The line went dead. In over eighteen hundred nights, he had never been the one to hang up first. I turned around, pulled my heavy suitcase off the top shelf of the closet, and began tossing my clothes inside. As I cleared off my desk, a folded piece of paper slipped out from beneath a stack of books. It was an official corporate transfer approval form from five years ago. It clearly stated that Lester’s company had approved his request to transfer to my city back then—with his salary, benefits, and seniority completely intact. My heart hammered against my ribs. On a strange, desperate whim, I dialed his regional supervisor’s direct line. When the man answered, his response knocked the breath right out of me. “Oh, Lester? I signed off on his relocation transfer five years ago, Ms. Whitlock. Full pay, great package. But he turned it down at the last minute. Said he had to stay behind for someone incredibly important.” The blood in my veins turned to ice. Five years ago, I had sat on the floor of my apartment holding my mother’s psychiatric admission papers, sobbing, begging Lester not to leave me, begging him not to do long-distance. He had packed his bags anyway, not even turning back as he walked out the door: “The salary package here is three times higher, Cathy. I’m doing this so we can buy a home and get married faster. Just hang in there a little longer.” I had ground myself to the bone, working endless overtime to build up my own savings, desperate to give him the financial security to come back to me. I had no idea that the “someone important” keeping him there was Bonnie. All those agonizing nights I had spent crying myself to sleep, clinging to his voice on a cell phone—they had been a lie from the very beginning. Five hours before my flight was scheduled to depart, I was packing my last bag when my phone buzzed with an urgent notification. A banking alert flashed across the screen: “$800,000.00 transferred out of account ending in 4092.” My brain went completely numb. I opened my mobile banking app with trembling hands. My remaining balance read: “$0.21.” That was my mother’s long-term care fund. It was also the money I had painstakingly saved over half a decade to build our future together. Only two people in the world had the password to that joint account: Lester and me. My fingers shook so violently I could barely dial the recipient details listed on the transaction receipt. It belonged to a high-end luxury real estate agency downtown. “Yes, ma’am,” the agent answered politely. “Mr. Payne just finalized the closing paperwork on a brand-new two-bedroom condo with us.” I took a cab straight to the sales office address. When I pushed open the heavy glass doors of the unit, Lester and Bonnie were bent over the kitchen island, their heads touching as they flipped through interior design catalogs. Lester pointed to the spacious master suite on the floor plan. “This bedroom is yours, Bonnie. That way, after Cathy and I get married, whenever you come over to stay, it’ll be super comfortable for you. Plus, it’s right next to your office—aren’t you going to thank me?” Bonnie squealed with excitement, launching herself into his arms and planting a loud, wet kiss on his cheek. My footsteps echoed hollowly against the bare floorboards. My voice was stripped raw. “Who gave you permission to touch that money?” Lester froze, awkwardly setting Bonnie back down on her feet. He straightened his collar, adopting a cool, reasonable tone. “Cathy, we’re getting married soon anyway. We needed to secure a proper home. Isn’t that what a marriage fund is for?” Buying a marital home—without the bride’s knowledge or consent. I swallowed the burning bile in my throat, forcing my voice to stay steady. “My mother needs that money for her psychiatric care. You didn’t leave a single penny?” A flicker of guilt flashed across Lester’s eyes, but it vanished as quickly as it came. Bonnie stepped forward, reaching out to gently touch my arm. “Cathy, please don’t be mad. We bought the place on a whim today, we haven’t even had time to walk you through it! If it bothers you that much, we can just cancel the purchase and refund it…” My eyes drifted down to the deed agreement resting on the kitchen island. Printed clearly on the line designated for the primary property owner was Bonnie’s name. Seeing where I was looking, Bonnie’s face flushed with mock embarrassment. “Oh dear… it looks like the title deed is already finalized. I don’t think we can refund it now…” Lester immediately stepped in front of her, shielding her behind his broad shoulders as he glared at me. “Putting it under her name just gives her a sense of security while she stays here! What difference does a name make on a piece of paper? We’re trying to build a future, Cathy—why are you so obsessed with dividing assets before we even walk down the aisle?” “I am not walking down the aisle with you,” I said, every word dripping with absolute exhaustion. “I am never marrying you.” Lester’s eyes widened in genuine shock. His mouth opened, but before he could say a word, Bonnie took an anxious step forward, her shoe catching on a decorative brass candle stand burning nearby. The stand tipped over. “Clatter.” The open flame ignited a stack of flammable designer wallpaper samples piled on the table. Within seconds, a wall of bright orange fire roared to life, sending thick, acrid black smoke billowing toward the ceiling. I choked, my lungs burning as if they were tearing apart. And in that split second of chaotic danger, the man who had sworn to protect me with his life instinctively lunged in the opposite direction—away from me. “Bonnie! Are you hurt?!” Bonnie coughed weakly, clinging to his shirt. “It’s all my fault… I ruined your home… Cathy is going to hate me forever…” “Who gives a damn about a house right now?!” Lester barked, scooping her up into his arms. He cast a hasty, careless glance back into the smoke toward me. “Cathy, get your ass out of here, move!” Before the words had even finished echoing, his figure vanished into the hallway, carrying Bonnie out to safety. I collapsed onto the floor, choking on the smoke, my tears finally breaking free and scalding my cheeks. After crawling my way out of the burning building, I didn’t look back. I hailed a cab and headed straight in the opposite direction. While sitting in the departure lounge at the airport, my phone buzzed incessantly. Caller ID: “Lester.” I declined every single call. One minute before boarding my flight to London, I opened my social media page and posted a single, public update. Once it was sent, I popped the SIM card out of my phone, walked over to the nearest trash receptacle, and tossed it deep inside. …… At the emergency room, Lester finally let out a long breath of relief after the doctor wheeled Bonnie out of the examination room. He turned around to check on his girlfriend, expecting to see her sitting on one of the waiting room chairs. The hallway was empty. Catherine hadn’t followed them. His heart violently skipped a beat. At that exact moment, a notification popped up on his phone—an update from Catherine’s account. He unlocked the screen, and as his eyes processed the words written there, his hand went completely limp. The phone slipped through his fingers and shattered against the floor.
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