For the three years I spent in Kent’s shadow, keeping our relationship a secret, everyone in his loud, glittering social circle took it for granted that Cecilia was his official girlfriend. She was the one allowed to stand in the light. She was the one who could publicly scold him for drag racing at midnight, or humiliate me when she caught us out on a date, warning me not to “corrupt” him. I felt so small, so deeply wronged. A thousand times, I wanted us to just go public. But Kent would always hold me back, soothing me with stories of his family’s brutal boardroom inheritance wars. He claimed Cecilia was nothing but a shield, a decoy to keep the target off my back. “The more convincing she looks,” he’d whisper, kissing my temple, “the safer you are.” I believed him. I swallowed my pride, over and over again, locking my resentment in a quiet corner of my chest. Until the day I was rushing back to my hometown in the Hudson Valley for the sweet cherry harvest. I reached Grand Central before realizing I’d left my ID on the vanity. Kent wasn’t picking up his phone, so I had no choice but to head back to his Manhattan penthouse. When I unlocked the door, the first thing I saw was lingerie scattered across the dark hardwood floor. Behind the half-open bedroom door, Kent and Cecilia were tangled in his sheets. Cecilia’s breathless voice drifted out, complaining, “Why aren’t you bored of her yet? Lydia has no family pedigree, she’s plain, she doesn’t even have any real talent. What do you even see in her?” Kent paused, then pressed his face into her shoulder with a low laugh. “Who else but Lydia would be stupid enough to drag herself back and forth across the state, looking like a total mess, just to bring me fresh, worthless cherries from her family’s farm?” In that split second, something fractured deep inside me. It felt like swallowing glass. The cherries weren’t the worthless ones. I was. Every time I had swallowed my hurt, every time I had accepted his hollow excuses—it was all because I was cheap in his eyes. It was time to go home. … Right there, in the middle of the discarded lace on the floor, lay my ID card. I walked into the bedroom without a sound. Cecilia screamed, pulling the duvet over her head. As I knelt on the cold floor to retrieve my card, a strange, toxic wave of satisfaction washed over me. “Look at that,” I thought. “I can make you look pathetic, too.” But I hadn’t won. Kent immediately shielded her, blocking her from my view with his broad shoulders. He glared at me, opening his mouth to lecture me, but the words died in his throat when I spoke. “Kent,” I whispered, my voice steadier than I expected. “Is this part of the decoy strategy, too?” I grew up in orchard country, where the air is sharp and people don’t play polite, polished mind games. I didn’t know how to be subtle. I leaned down, snatched a pair of lace underwear from the floor, and threw them right at his fiercely protective face. For the brief second his face was obscured, I felt an unexpected, liberating rush of relief. Kent ripped the lace away, veins pulsing in his neck. He swallowed his fury, trying to smooth things over with that familiar, patronizing tone. “Lydia, calm down. Sometimes I have to play the part to make it convincing. Otherwise, my family will see right through us.” “Play the part?” A bitter laugh escaped me. “Tell me one truth, Kent. Just one.” I looked him dead in the eye. “Was I the part you were playing all along? And is Cecilia the real story?” I already knew the answer. But some pathetic, wounded part of me still craved the finality of hearing him say it. I knew he would spin a web of beautiful, poisonous lies to keep me on his hook. Yet I stood there, inviting the poison anyway. Kent hesitated. His jaw worked, but before he could speak, Cecilia yanked his arm from behind. She ran a hand through her perfect curls, looking thoroughly bored. “Oh, come on, Kent. I’m tired of the drama. Stop pretending with her.” She cast a lazy, dismissive glance at me and scoffed. “Seriously, it’s embarrassing. Fighting over a man with a country bumpkin? It’s beneath me.” Kent tapped her waist, a silent plea for her to stop, but Cecilia just rolled her eyes, laid back down, and unlocked her phone. I stood there like the punchline of a joke, unable to move forward or back. Suddenly, Cecilia’s phone chimed with a loud bank alert. “Kent QuickPay transfer received: One hundred thousand dollars.” She smiled, tidied her hair, blew Kent a kiss, and grabbed her designer bag. As she brushed past me, a cloud of cloying, expensive perfume hit my nose. She tapped my shoulder playfully. “Relax, sweetie. We were just teasing you. Don’t take it to heart. He’s all yours. I’m going shopping.” A joke. No apology. He spent a hundred thousand dollars just to keep her smiling. And what about me? I slowly held out my open palm to him, demanding the same. Kent, seeing a crack in my cold exterior, let out a relieved laugh. He grabbed my hand and led me out to his car. But we didn’t go to Fifth Avenue. We stopped at a gritty, open-air farmer’s market on the edge of the city. He pulled up beside an elderly woman selling cheap cherries from the back of a pickup truck. Kent turned to me, completely earnest. “Do these make you feel any better?” My face contorted. A harsh, disbelieving laugh slipped out. “This is my compensation?” Kent chuckled, clearing his throat behind his hand. His voice took on a sharp, mocking edge. “Well, isn’t this what you usually bring me? Lydia, did you think you could play a cheap hand to win the jackpot? Were you expecting me to take you to Cartier to make up for this? That’s cute.” My family’s farm produces the finest Rainier cherries in the region. Every harvest, I would wake up at dawn, climb the tallest ladders to pluck the sweetest, most perfect fruit from the highest branches, and carry them back to the city like fragile treasure. Just so Kent could have the first, freshest bite. All that devotion—which I thought was beautiful—was nothing but trash to him. Yes, right now I was being petty. I wanted his money to balance the scales of my broken heart. But before today, I had never asked him for a single thing. He could throw a hundred thousand at Cecilia without blinking. For me, my worth was measured by a plastic bag of bruised cherries from a street vendor. “Eight dollars a pound, sweetie,” the old woman said, sensing our hesitation. “They’re very cheap.” I blinked back the tears stinging my eyes, knelt down, and picked out two pounds of the small, mediocre fruit. “Great,” I told Kent, looking up. “These will do. Pay her.” He looked stunned, clumsily pulling out his phone to scan her code. I doubted Kent had ever paid for anything so cheap in his life. On the ride back, I sat in the passenger seat and peeled one open. I popped it into my mouth, only to find the flesh soft and rotting. The tears almost spilled into the cheap plastic bag. “Cheap things really are garbage,” I murmured. Kent noticed. He let out a frustrated sigh, ran his fingers through his hair, and muttered, “Forget it.” He yanked the steering wheel, pivoting the car toward Manhattan’s most exclusive luxury shopping district. “Get out,” he said, shifting into park. He leaned over, his chest pressing close to mine, to unbuckle my seatbelt. The familiar scent of his expensive cologne filled the tight space. I clutched the crinkled plastic bag in my lap, feeling a knot of confusion and hurt. “Why are we here?” I asked. If he wanted to buy me off, what was the point of the humiliation at the market? Was it a test? But he was the one who cheated. What right did he have to test me? Kent sighed, reaching out to brush a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “Don’t you want to feel better? You said you wanted—” I cut him off, shaking my head. “The cherries are enough. I only wanted the cherries.” “I only wanted your heart.” But I couldn’t say it. Before he could argue, a sharp knock rattled the window. The back doors were flung open, and the quiet tension in the cabin was shattered by a chorus of giggles. Cecilia’s friends, draped in designer shopping bags, piled into the back seat with sighs of relief. Cecilia stood outside the passenger door, her arms crossed, waiting. Only then did the brutal realization of Kent’s “Get out” hit me. He hadn’t brought me here to shop. He had brought me here to pick them up. I sat there, my face burning with a sudden, agonizing heat, staring at the cheap plastic bag of rotting cherries in my lap. Before I could even open the door to flee, the insults drifted from the back. “Oh, look who’s still clinging to Kent. The little country girl from upstate.” “Why is she still in the passenger seat? Doesn’t she know when she’s not wanted? Get out!” Someone whispered to Cecilia, “You’re too soft on him. If you don’t put this home-wrecker in her place, she’s going to keep acting like she owns him.” Cecilia laughed softly, looking at me with sweet pity. “Oh, please. I don’t micromanage my men. If he steps out of line, he pays the bill. Don’t tease her, she looks like she’s about to cry.” My entire body went numb. My pride, my dignity—everything I had desperately tried to preserve—was ground into the dirt. This secret relationship, this “shield” he claimed was for my protection, had turned me into a joke. A cheap mistress. I threw the door open and ran. No matter how fast I sprinted through the concrete labyrinth of the parking garage, their laughter echoed behind me, bouncing off the walls like a recurring nightmare. When I finally stopped, my chest heaved, a physical ache blooming in my heart. The tears came then, hot and choking, followed by a wave of pure, physical nausea. How had I let my life get this desperate? The plastic bag slipped from my hand, spilling the cheap, bruised cherries across the dirty concrete. My phone buzzed in my pocket. My heart leaped, but it wasn’t Kent. Of course it wasn’t. Nobody cares about the runaway mistress, least of all him. I answered, my throat tight. “Hello?” “Lydia, sweetheart!” My mother’s warm, cheerful voice flooded the line. “The first harvest from the crown trees is ready. Your dad already packed the biggest, sweetest cherries for you. When are you coming up to take them back to your little city boyfriend?” She laughed softly. “Every year you’re so impatient, terrified he’ll miss the best batch. We’re all packed and waiting for your word!” The tears poured down my cheeks. How could I explain to her that he didn’t care about my cherries? That he wasn’t my “boyfriend”? That it was all a lie? He had promised we’d get married, promised Cecilia was just a game, promised he loved me. All of it, lies. I couldn’t even tell her we were breaking up, because we were never officially together. “Mom,” I sobbed, breaking down completely. “I want to come home. I want to come home right now. Please, I don’t want to be here anymore.” Her voice turned frantic and soft with maternal instinct. “Okay, baby. We’re coming to get you. We’re bringing you home.” I took a cab back to his apartment to pack. The place belonged to Kent, so there was no lease to worry about. I didn’t even need to leave a note. The penthouse was empty when I arrived, but a row of orange and black designer bags sat lined up in the hallway. Chanel, Prada, Hermès. I didn’t look at them. None of it was mine. Yet I couldn’t stop thinking about the cheap cherries from the market. A cold shudder ran through my chest. “Stop,” I told myself. “Just go home.” As I dragged my small suitcase toward the front door, it swung open. Kent stood there. His eyes locked onto my luggage, his pupils shrinking. “Lydia, where are you going?” He ran a hand through his hair, his voice sharp with defensive anger. “Are you seriously running away just because I didn’t buy you designer bags?” He paused, realizing how ugly that sounded, and softened his tone. “Look, I know you’re not superficial. You’re upset about what Cecilia’s friends said, right? I’ll explain it to them. I’ll make it public. They won’t say another word to you.” I stared at his perfect, handsome face, and for the first time, I felt a deep, pulsing hatred. I hated him because I had loved him so much. “Kent, you don’t have to worry,” I said quietly. He blinked, looking relieved. He stepped toward me, wrapping his arms around me in a tight, desperate embrace, burying his face in the crook of my neck. “Lydia, you scared the hell out of me,” he whispered, exhaling a long, shuddering breath. “I thought you were actually leaving.” I stood perfectly still. “Are you actually capable of being afraid?” “Yes.” “Well, don’t be. I’ve done the math, and honestly, you didn’t lose anything in this deal. I lived in your apartment, but I also cooked, cleaned, and took care of you. Let’s call that even.” Kent squeezed me tighter, a note of panic in his voice. “Lydia, why are you talking like this?” “And even though I never understood why you were so terrified I’d steal your money—when you have more than you could ever spend—I never accepted a single dime from you. You offered, but I never took it. And since you paid for those cheap cherries today, our ledgers are perfectly balanced.” I shoved him away and slapped him, hard, across the face. “That’s for tricking me into a secret relationship and turning me into a side-piece,” I said, my voice ice-cold. Before he could recover, I slapped him again. “And that’s for the betrayal, and the public humiliation.” Kent had been pampered his entire life; nobody had ever raised a hand to him. The shock turned his face red with fury. He grabbed my arm, dragged me into the living room, and threw me onto the floor. A sharp, blinding pain shot up my spine as my tailbone hit the hardwood. He grabbed the designer bags from the hallway and started throwing them at me—handbags, jewelry boxes, silk scarves, a diamond watch—pelting me with luxury. When that wasn’t enough, he ran to his safe and came back with stacks of cash, car keys, and property deeds, scattering them over my head. “Is this enough?” he roared, towering over me. “Isn’t this what all the crying is about? You want what she has? Fine! Take it!” I looked up, tears streaming down my face, but I kept my chin high. If these things were given with love, they would be gifts. But thrown at me like this, they were just currency to buy my dignity. Kent paced the room, his hands over his face, breathing heavily. He knelt down, opened my suitcase, and started stuffing the cash and jewelry inside. “Just take them and go, if that’s what you want,” he said, his voice dropping. But I saw the arrogance in his eyes. He knew me. He knew I wouldn’t touch a single dollar of it. He thought by putting them in my bag, he was giving me a reason to stay. He sighed, reaching out to brush a tear from my cheek. “Don’t do this, Lydia. You know I really care about you.” Right then, his phone rang. It was Cecilia, demanding he get to the department store to pay for her new haul since he’d taken the last batch to “placate” me. Kent zipped up my suitcase, gave me one last look, and walked out the door. I swallowed the pain, unzipped the bag, and meticulously threw every single piece of Cecilia’s luxury items onto the floor. I stood up, took my handle, and walked out. I didn’t look back.
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