After Five Years, I Left the Man Who Faked Being Poor

To scrape together the down payment on our wedding home, Kent Delgado canceled my family credit card.

He said we both had to learn to be careful with money, to stretch every dollar until it split in two.

I agreed. I started buying clothes off street racks, eating food past its sell-by date.

Even at a 102-degree fever, I couldn't bring myself to spend money on a cab to the hospital.

Standing in line at the ER to pay, I had a few dollars left on my card.

Shaking, I called Kent for help.

The call connected, and on the other end I heard a saleswoman's polite voice:

"Mr. Delgado, this three-million-dollar pink diamond necklace really suits the young lady's elegance."

Kent answered without a second's hesitation:

"Put it on the card."

I froze where I stood, staring at the 0-050 charge on the payment slip,

and I couldn't hold back the tears.

It wasn't that he had no money. It wasn't that we had to be careful.

He just thought I wasn't worth spending a single cent of his.

The phone slid through my fingers. I bit down hard on my lip, swallowing the sob rising in my throat.

The ER lobby was loud with voices, but somehow I couldn't hear any of it.

I stumbled out of the hospital, found some little clinic and bought a bit of medicine. My balance was down to twenty-eight dollars.

Back at the basement apartment I rented with Kent, the moment I opened the door, the smell of mildew and shut-in damp hit me in the face.

Kent's note from this morning was still on the table:

"Don't buy groceries today. There's leftover rice in the fridge from the other day."

I suddenly laughed, and the tears came anyway.

Five years I'd been with him. Five years of pinching and going without.

And what it bought me was him throwing away a fortune on another woman.

I grabbed a fistful of pills and shoved them in my mouth, then dragged myself along the wall, step by step, to the bed.

I didn't sleep well. Fragments of all those years flickered through my dreams.

Back when Kent first chased me, he'd made such a spectacle of it that the whole school knew.

I remember the day I said yes to him. His eyes were so bright, the tenderness in them almost spilling over.

The passionate boy in my memory blurred into the Kent of now, colder and colder.

Half-conscious, I heard the door push open.

Kent walked softly to the bed and reached out to touch my forehead.

A moment later he laid a cool towel across it.

"Philippa Simmons, get better soon."

He paused, his voice rough:

"It's my fault. I'm useless, and I've dragged you into suffering with me."

A single tear ran from the corner of my eye onto the pillow.

Kent, I've suddenly realized I don't understand you at all.

The next morning I woke to the smell of food.

Kent, in an apron, was busy in the kitchen we'd partitioned off.

He turned, saw I was awake, and his eyes lit up.

"Philippa, how are you feeling? Anything still hurting?"

I shook my head.

"Food's almost ready. Should I bring it to you in bed, or do you want to get up and eat?"

I pushed back the blanket, and the second I stood my legs went out from under me.

Kent crossed the room in two quick strides and caught me.

"See, a small place has its perks. Any bigger and you'd have hit the floor just now."

There was pride in his voice.

I said nothing and walked into the kitchen, where I found the pot held rice left over from who knew how many days ago, a few scattered bits of egg floating on top.

He scratched his head, his eyes full of guilt:

"Philippa, I'm sorry. It's all we've got in the house."

"If only I had money. At least when you're sick I could get you something decent to eat."

My hands started trembling on their own. Inside I went cold all over.

Kent scooped the rice into a bowl and handed it to me.

I ate without tasting a thing, and saw the space in front of him was empty.

"You're not eating?"

Kent went stiff for an instant.

"I'm not hungry. Besides, there's not much food left. The sick one eats first."

I glanced at him and said nothing.

Before long, Kent had washed the bowl and plate I'd finished with.

"Philippa, I'm off to work. Rest up at home. Don't rush back to your job."

And then he hurried out the door.

After Kent left, I followed him through one turn after another until we reached a district of estates.

What I saw in front of me hit me like a bolt of lightning.

Kent had barely opened the door when a woman threw herself against him.

"Kent, what took you so long? I've been waiting forever."

Her soft, coaxing voice reached me in broken pieces.

I watched Kent ruffle her hair and carry her inside with an arm around her.

I wiped away tears I hadn't noticed forming and pulled out my phone to search the property prices here.

The screen took a moment before it refreshed.

The Ziyu Estate. Three hundred thousand per square meter, and you had to prove your assets before they'd even show you a unit.

The truth hit me across the face like a slap.

Only yesterday I'd caught myself making excuses for him, telling myself Kent had maybe just bought his sister some outrageously expensive necklace.

Now it was perfectly clear. He'd betrayed what we had a long time ago, and he was with another woman.

My nails dug hard into my palms, and it was a long while before I drifted home in a daze.

On the way, it suddenly struck me that if it had been that other person, he would never have treated me like this.

Lying on the bed in the basement, I stared hard at the water stain on the ceiling.

When had it started? I kept interrogating myself.

And I couldn't find a single sign. Kent had never given anything away.

He was the attentive boyfriend, thoughtful down to the smallest detail.

Spring, summer, fall, winter, he'd always pick me up after work, hand me a bowl of warm honey tea at exactly the right temperature during my period, and even in his sleep he'd pull me into his arms without thinking.

Inch by inch, my heart went cold.

My eyes wandered without purpose over the basement I'd lived in for five years.

Every single thing here Kent and I had picked out together. Cheap, all of it, but warm.

A rapid string of message alerts cut through my thoughts.

"Philippa, an owner at the Ziyu Estate wants housekeeping this afternoon. A thousand an hour. If you want it I'll hold it for you."

I'd taken on several jobs so I could save up the down payment faster and finally have a home with Kent.

My finger hovered over the screen. A moment passed before I typed out two words: "I'll go."

Maybe it was for the best. See that gilded splendor with my own eyes, and maybe then I could finally give up for good.

At three that afternoon, I walked into the villa complex loaded down with bags.

The instant I looked up and saw the woman's face clearly, the blood shot straight to my head.

It was her. The woman Kent had cheated with.

She wore a silk nightgown, and behind her stood a whole wall of Herms.

I paused, then stepped inside.

"Hey, shoes off. Honestly, some housekeeper you are."

"Don't get my imported wool carpet dirty."

She rolled her eyes at me, her look full of distaste.

"The kitchen and living room both need a real cleaning. Skip the bedroom."

"Oh, and the bathroom flooryou wipe it down with a rag three times. The last housekeeper always mopped it and left it reeking."

Under the huge crystal chandelier overhead, her hand looked so pale and soft.

I glanced down at my own hands, covered in thin calluses, and nodded in silence.

While I cleaned, she sat on the sofa with her legs crossed, watching, and then out of nowhere she said,

"You people seem so tired. Good thing I don't have to work. My husband takes care of me."

I dragged a bitter smile to the corner of my mouth.

"Then he's good to you."

"He's all right. Gives me five hundred thousand a month for spending money."

She said it like it was nothing.

"Hey, wait, that's not clean."

She pointed at the seams between the floor tiles.

"Ma'am, that's the color of your grout"

I said helplessly.

"I don't care. I don't care how you do it, you scrub it white."

"Or do you think I'm paying you to sit around and enjoy yourself?"

Her spoiled, sharp voice came at me.

I crouched down and scrubbed at it, hard, over and over.

"Ma'am, I've finished. If you're satisfied, please leave a five-star review."

Before she could answer, I dragged myself, drained, toward the door.

My hand had just landed on the handle when the door was pushed open from outside.

Kent Delgado stood in the doorway, and the instant he saw me, his pupils shrank.

"You're home? I missed you so much~"

As he passed me, he dropped his voice low enough for only me to hear:

"Philippa, go home first."

He didn't look at me once. He just shut the door.

I stood outside for a long time. Then I heard him say:

"Charlotte, were you a good girl while I was gone?"

That tenderness in his voice was one I knew by heart. My nose stung, and before I could stop it, the tears fell.

I hadn't been home long when Kent came back too.

"Why are you sitting in the dark?" He frowned, studying me.

"Kent, why did you betray me?"

I forced the sob back down.

He sat down in front of me and gripped my hands tight.

"Philippa, don't read too much into it. It's just a misunderstanding. She's a younger girl I know. There's nothing between us."

Everything I'd seen at that mansion today flashed through my mind.

"A younger girl? Does a younger girl call you her husband? Does a younger girl get half a million a month from you?"

"Weren't you the one who told me we had to split every penny in half to scrape together the down payment for our wedding home?"

Kent pressed down the impatience in his eyes.

"Philippa Simmons, are you done? I already told you it's a misunderstanding. Do you really have to keep clawing at it?"

"A misunderstanding? Is it a misunderstanding that she lives in a mansion and I live in a basement?"

"Is it a misunderstanding that you buy her a three-hundred-thousand-dollar necklace but wouldn't even give me money to see a doctor?"

The moment he saw my tears, something like panic crossed his eyes.

"Philippa, I"

"You what? Kent, you look ridiculous when you lie."

"Enough!"

He pinched the bridge of his nose, irritated.

"Fine, I admit it. I've kept her for three years. But I spend most of my time with you, don't I? Is there any need to make a scene?"

"What I give her is money. What I give you is love. That's perfectly fair. What do you have to be unhappy about?"

"Fair?"

The tears dropped onto the table one after another. I pulled a smile onto my face.

"Kent, I've been with you for five years. In your eyes, all I'm worth is fair. Is that it?"

He was silent for a moment, then tossed out one line: "Think whatever you want."

The door slammed hard behind him.

I sat there staring at nothing for a while, and suddenly I felt ridiculous.

We'd been together five years, and he'd been keeping that woman for three of them.

I wiped the tears off my face and got up to pack.

When I saw the scarf by the bed, I paused.

There'd been a rare blizzard in Chicago that winter. The office was far from home, I couldn't get a car no matter what I tried, and I was shaking with cold.

I'd steeled myself and decided to just walk back when I saw Kent making his way toward me, stumbling through the snow.

He'd taken the scarf from his own neck and wrapped it around me. I laughed and told him his hair had gone white.

He said, if we could stand in the falling snow together today, then we could count on growing old together, white-haired, for the rest of our lives.

But Kent, all of a sudden, I don't want to grow old with you anymore.

Once I'd packed, the suitcase was only half full.

Only then did it hit me how little I had to show for all these years.

Early the next morning, I picked up my suitcase, ready to go.

Then someone started pounding on the basement door, bang after bang.

I opened it and lookedit was the woman Kent was keeping.

She swept a glance around the room and pressed a hand over her nose.

"I'm Charlotte Matthews. Name your price. How much to walk away from Kent."

Her eyes landed on me, full of contempt.

I let out a scornful laugh.

"How much? A mistress, and you think you get to say that to me?"

Charlotte's face twisted for a second, then smoothed right back over.

"Don't flatter yourself, granny. Understand this. Wherever a man's money goes, that's where his love is."

"And every time he leaves this place he feels like he's been dragged through the gutter. He goes home and scrubs himself for an hour."

I stepped closer and stared her down.

"And then? If he's so disgusted by me, why hasn't he broken it off?"

Her expression went dark in an instant. One hand clamped around my arm, and with the other she swung at me, hard.

Crack.

I turned my face with it, my cheek burning.

Before she could react, I caught her wrist and swung back with everything I had.

"Philippa! What do you think you're doing?!"

The furious shout came, and in the same breath I was kicked flying.

I bit down hard on my lip, a savage pain tearing through my ribs.

Kent walked up to me, his eyes cold and hard.

"Who said you could touch her? I told you, if you've got a problem, take it up with me!"

He looked at me doubled over in pain, and something like guilt flickered in his eyes.

"Pippa, Charlotte's young, she doesn't know any better. Can't you cut her a little slack?"

"Do you really have to make such a big deal out of it?"

I forced the words out through my teeth.

"I'm making a big deal"

Before I could finish, a slap knocked me to the floor.

"You actually dared to hit me just now?"

Charlotte's face was twisted with rage as she raised her foot and stomped down on me, again and again.

Kent gave me one pained look, then turned his face away.

Fists and feet rained down all over me, until I felt like I was coming apart.

It was a while before Kent finally came over to pull Charlotte off.

"Pippa, don't blame me for this."

"You're too strong. You're like a hardwood tree. No matter what, you'll survive."

"But Charlotte's different. She's a flower raised in a greenhouse. She's never been hit in her life. If she doesn't get to hit back, she'll be upset."

It was a long time before I managed to lift my head from the floor.

"So you think I should not only pretend I don't know about the two of you, I should stand there and take the hits and the insults without a word?"

I laughed, and the tears ran down anyway.

"That's right. What else?"

Charlotte's eyes were pure contempt.

"You didn't actually think you could take Kent away from me, did you?"

And with that she backhanded me across the face again.

Ignoring the blood at the corner of my mouth, I looked at Kent.

"You think so too, don't you?"

Something tightened in Kent's chest.

"That's not it, Pippa"

He didn't get to finish. My voice was hoarse when I cut him off.

"Enough, you don't have to say anything. I understand now."

"All of it is my own fault. Kent, let's break up."

"Break up? Dumped is more like it."

Charlotte pulled out a wad of cash and threw it in my face.

"From Kent, through me. Five years of you, and this is all it's worth."

I gave Kent one long look, then braced myself against the wall and got to my feet.

I went to drag my suitcase over, and Kent grabbed my wrist.

"Pippa, if you're willing, I can get you a new place. A whole other apartment."

I saw the certainty in his eyes.

He thought I couldn't bear to leave him. But someone else had already been waiting a long time for me, and I didn't want to keep him waiting anymore.

I slapped Kent hard across the face and walked out, limping.

Two days later, Kent went to my company to find me. He figured by now I'd have cooled off, just like every other time.

"Philippa? She quit two days ago."

The receptionist gave him an odd look.

Kent's breath caught. He remembered what I'd said before.

The color drained from his face, and he turned and rushed out without looking back.