Luke must have paid someone to do this. To hide the evidence.

The euphoria at getting a job interview quickly evaporated. Standing up, I decided to go to the store. I needed to get out of the stifling apartment. Natalie was at work and I hated the silence that permeated the walls. I grabbed my purse and flung open the door as a crowd of people surrounded me, screaming. What the fuck? I blinked in the unusually bright, winter sunlight.

“Miss Knight!”

They elbowed each other in their attempts to shove huge black cameras in my face. Flash. Click.

“Miss Knight, what did you and Luke do together? Would you like to sell a story to Huffington Post?”

The woman shoved a microphone under my nose. I stared at in shock for a second, refusing to look at the huge video camera aimed at my face, and smacked it away. Didn’t they understand that I didn’t want to be harassed?

“No. Get off of my lawn.”

None of them budged. When I was with Luke, he always shoved through the paparazzi like moving through a packed concert. I edged through them to get to my crappy car parked on the street. They followed me like a strange, nonthreatening mob and encircled my car. All of their requests were drowned by the car’s engine and they finally moved out of the way when it lurched forward.

They took pictures through the windshield; some of them still screaming requests. Jesus. How long is this going to last? Surely, people would get tired of reading about the blonde hooker—escort, or whatever it was they were calling me.

I didn’t really feel like going to the store because I knew I would have to drive back home with the groceries, where they were camped out. I veered my car into the highway and headed instead towards the soup kitchen.

I wasn’t scheduled to come in, but I couldn’t handle sitting in my apartment alone all day. As I walked towards the kitchen, I saw that half its windows were smashed.

“What happened?” I asked the men sweeping up the broken glass.

They shrugged. “I don’t think you’re supposed to go in there.”

Ignoring him, I pushed through the door and my shoes crunched over broken glass. Inside was a scene of devastation. Black graffiti covered the yellow walls in high arches. I bent over and righted a chair. As I walked through to the kitchen, a sick feeling descended over me.

Shelly was there with a clipboard in her hands, shaking her head. “Our inventory suffered a huge loss. They took our best pots and made a mess out of the pantry.”

“Who did this?” I said, shaking with quiet fury.

“You haven’t even seen the worst of it.”

She beckoned me to the back, which led to the small garden I helped build. I stared in dismay at the lumps of brown earth everywhere and pushed the door open in a rage. There was nothing left but tatters of green, scattered among the earth. All of our herbs—gone. The bok choy and the cabbage lay on the earth like headless corpses. Weeks of work, gone in an instant.

“It doesn’t matter,” I croaked. “We’ll just have to do it again. Re-plant everything.”

“I’m not sure Carol will want to. It’ll be hard enough replacing all the supplies we lost. There’s just no money in the budget for the garden.”

I felt the familiar sting of frustration at Carol’s rigid policies until I remembered: I have money. I could pour thousands into this place.

Ok, it wasn’t like I had thousands upon thousands, but the money Luke gave me would help repair most of the damage. Giving your money away is such a stupid idea. But the money was making me feel sick. I didn’t want it anymore. The articles written about me made me feel ashamed, even though I had done nothing wrong. It reminded me that at its core, our relationship was represented by dollar signs. I knew that it meant much more than that, but to feel good about myself I had to get rid of it. All of it.

I cried when I got home and wrote the check, clutching an eight thousand, five hundred and sixty two dollar check. I couldn’t exactly empty my entire bank account—I still needed to eat and pay my bills—but at least most of it was gone.

You are so fucking stupid. Just shoot yourself now. It would be the most generous, stupid thing I ever did. Natalie’s going to freak.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

Carol looked at me as if I was on the edge of sanity, which I probably was.

Just take it before I change my mind. “Yes, on one condition, though.”

She folded her arms. “What?”

“I want more authority in the kitchen. I want to be able to make whatever I want. I also want to install a security system so that this never happens again. Cameras and padlocked gates enclosing the backyard.”

“Fine.”

Carol stuck out her hand and I grabbed it numbly.

Fine? I was expecting a fight, but I guess once I started waving money in front of her face—nothing else mattered. I turned around and tried to ignore the screaming voice in my head, calling me an idiot for spending the majority of my money. What would happen when another disaster hit and the soup kitchen ran out of funds?

You’re only doing this for Luke. To prove to him that you don’t want his money.

As I got in my car, I turned the volume way up in the hopes it would drown out the voice in my head.

* * *

At the end of another workday, the BART ground to a halt at my stop and I wearily stood to my feet, following the rush of passengers into the frigid air. I walked down the steps and thought back to the time when I hurried up these steps in a borrowed dress to meet Luke in the city.

When I first met him, he was like a dream. I could remember all the times he held me. I remembered his hands, which had begun to learn where I liked to be touched the most, and I felt so damn lonely.

I had a job. Health insurance. I was in therapy for the first time in my life. All was well, except that at night, I still cried for the man who had ditched me.

“There are plenty of other guys out there,” Natalie repeated over and over. “Tons.”

Except there was only one man I was interested in. He saved me—he changed my life. I was almost sorry to see the paparazzi dwindle from my lawn. It was a testament to time. Gradually, the scandal of our brief relationship was ebbing away. No one cared anymore. I wondered, as I did often, if Luke thought of me as often as I did. Was his father still alive? Was he still catering to his every demand?

Once or twice, I thought about calling him, but I didn’t want to be that girl. I wasn’t going to be pathetic—I would not chase after a man who didn’t want me. I didn’t need him. That’s what I told myself, anyways.