To save money for a house, I had been living a frugal life with my boyfriend, Desmond Wood.

When Desmond received a twenty-thousand-dollar bonus, he bought me a branded bag.

I was delighted, but I felt that he did not need to spend so much on me.

Hence, I brought the receipt and the bag to the shop for a refund.

The shopkeeper told me that my bag was fake.

However, the receipt was real.

“How is it possible that the bag’s fake? Please have another look. The receipt is here.” I was puzzled by the shopkeeper’s words.

“The receipt is indeed from our shop, but this bag is fake.” The shopkeeper glanced at me and seemed to have a whole load of stuff to say. “Would you like to check with the person who bought the bag?”

I left the shop with my friend, Christy Smith.

Christy scrutinized the receipt. “If the receipt’s real, that means Desmond did buy a bag here. So, what’s with the fake bag?”

This left me puzzled until dinnertime.

However, I needed to pull myself together, as Desmond and I were having a gathering with some friends.

Since we wanted to save money, we had not gone out for a meal with our friends in a very long time.

Recently, Desmond said he had finally secured a good deal and received his bonus. So, it was fine for us to eat out.

When Christy and I arrived, Desmond’s friends were already in the private room.

We had just taken our seats when Desmond walked in with Nova Anderson. She was dressed in a long, light-colored dress.

Christy tugged at my elbow. “Look. Nova has the same bag as you.”

I looked, and they were indeed the same bag. I frowned.

Nova was Desmond’s childhood best friend. She was married a few years ago, but her husband was violent. As such, she ended up in the hospital a few times.

After a long battle, Nova finally divorced her husband.

However, she was traumatized from the experience. It took her a long time to get back to her usual self.

While she recovered, Desmond took good care of her.

Nova was immensely grateful toward him. She would always meet up with Desmond, with the excuse of thanking him.

It was not clear when she started to mimic my appearance, but her look and attire had grown increasingly similar to mine.

Whenever I brought this up to Desmond, he would indifferently say, “That’s not true. She probably just feels that you have a good fashion sense.”

Christy always disliked how Nova would copy me, so she asked, “Nova, your bag looks nice. Where did you get it?”

Nova glanced at me cautiously and grabbed her bag. “I bought it online. It’s a dupe, so it’s not worth much.”

I carefully scrutinized her bag—it was the real thing.

I put my bag on the table. “What a coincidence. I also have a fake bag.”

Everyone went quiet, as the atmosphere became awkward.

Desmond cocked an eyebrow in dissatisfaction. “I bought yours from the shop. It’s the real deal.”

I crossed my arms. “I brought this to the shop and asked about it. It’s fake.”

Desmond put down his fork. “That’s impossible.”

“Nova, which online shop did you purchase your bag from? The quality’s great. It looks better than the fake one that Paige has,” Christy asked sarcastically.

Nova immediately retorted, “What are you implying? Are you saying that I switched my bag with hers? Desmond, they’re slandering me.”

She pulled out the receipt from her online purchase and showed everyone. “I just really like this bag. I don’t have that much money to buy the real thing, so I bought a fake one online. Is that wrong?”

Christy became less angry when she saw the online purchase record.

“Ahem,” Desmond’s friend broke the awkward silence. “No one said you changed the bag. Let’s eat. Otherwise, the food’s going to go cold.”

I took a sip of water and slowly said, “It’s not cheap. If we bought a fake bag from the shop, we should file a police report to expose that shop.”

Nova stuttered, “I-It’s just a bag. We don’t have to involve the police.”

I sneered. “It’s not easy to earn money these days. We can’t let scammers off the hook so easily.” I took out my phone and pretended to call the police.

Nova suddenly lurched forward and slapped my phone away.

“It was me! I took your bag! I just saw how nice the bag was and wanted to borrow it for a few days. Why are you so stingy?”

I picked up my phone and noticed a crack on the screen. Nova had really used all her strength to slap my phone away.

“I’m stingy? You didn’t ask me before you switched our bags. That’s called stealing!”

Nova hid herself behind Desmond when she saw how angry I was. “Desmond, I just really like this bag. I couldn’t afford it with my salary. I just wanted to have it for a few days to feel how it’s like to have a branded bag. I didn’t mean to steal the bag for myself.”

Desmond patted her hand to comfort her. He turned around and said to me, “It’s just a bag. Why are you making it a big deal?”

“She only said that she would return it to me after I pointed it out. What if I didn’t realize it was a fake bag? She would’ve basically stolen it!” I retorted in anger.

“Enough, Paige! Can’t you be more generous? Nova has suffered enough in the past. She can’t be triggered anymore.” Desmond grew impatient.

Seeing what had happened, Joe Harris added, “That’s right. Why are you arguing with Nova over this? Desmond received a sixty-thousand-dollar bonus this time. Just ask him to get you a better bag.”

When Joe said that, Desmond’s face turned ashen. However, Nova appeared smug.

“A sixty-thousand-dollar bonus? Desmond, you told me it was only twenty thousand dollars. What’s going on?” My eyes flickered between Desmond and Nova.

Joe realized that he had said something he should not have. He rubbed his nose awkwardly before he stepped back and fell quiet.

After a while, Desmond said, “I’ll explain when we get home.”

“Why do you have to explain at home? You can just talk here.” I refused to let it go.

“That’s right. Why can’t you tell her? You can’t possibly hide it from Paige forever.” Nova took a sip of her drink. She had a new set of manicures, and they were so colorful that they blinded me.

Seeing that Desmond was still quiet, she smiled viciously. “Since he’s too worried to say anything, I’ll do it. His bonus is indeed sixty thousand dollars, but he’s separated it into two portions. You got twenty thousand dollars, and I got forty thousand dollars.”

Nova cupped her face with one hand and nonchalantly brushed her other hand against her neck. It was then that I realized she was wearing a new necklace.

“I bet you didn’t know that every month, he gives me eight thousand dollars from his twelve-thousand-dollar salary. He leaves only four thousand dollars to you. I always get double of what you get.”

“Nova!” Desmond chastised her.

She stopped talking and just stared tauntingly at me.

Her words left me dumbfounded. I felt a little dizzy, as though a bomb had just dropped in my head, and my ears were ringing.

I glared at Desmond. “Is this true?”

Desmond grabbed my hand and frantically explained, “Nova grew up with me, and her mother was my teacher. She asked me to take good care of Nova, so I…”

“So, it’s true? You said that we have to save money to buy a house and get married. But you’ve been giving her your money behind my back. I decided against buying some meat to save money, and I didn’t even change my towel when it had holes in them! But there she is, living her best life and having a branded bag! So, I’m the one who’s been suffering. Am I that worthless in your eyes?

“If you love her that much, just say so! Do you think I’ll beg you to stay?”

“No, no, you’ve misunderstood the whole situation, Paige. I only view her as a younger sister. You’re the one that I love.”

Desmond looked a bit flustered.

However, I no longer wanted to listen to him. I took the fake bag and threw it at him. “You can have this back! Get lost with your fake bag and fake younger sister.”

The bag knocked over a glass on the table, which smashed onto the floor.

Before everyone could process what just happened, I left the private room. Christy chased after me and left with me.

I felt angrier the more I thought about it after I went home.

I looked around the house that Desmond and I had rented together.

Back then, he told me that we had to save money together to buy a house. So, we did not have to put a lot of effort into decorating our rental home.

Apart from some essential furniture, there was nothing else in this house. It felt really empty.

On top of that, the dining table was uneven. We had to put an additional block of wood to balance it out. The curtains from Desmond’s hometown were drab, as the pilling fabric was faded.

The metal money box under the table caught my attention.

Even though most of our transactions were done through phones, Desmond liked the feeling of saving cash. He bought this money box, which allowed us to put money in but made it more difficult to take it out.

He said that it would be our year-end reward. We made a deal to put in three hundred dollars every month per person. Then, we would open the box at the end of the year and use the money. We could purchase gifts to reward ourselves for a year of hard work in saving.

However, it was really easy to make payments with our phone, so we did not open the money box last year when we bought our year-end gifts.

We just left the box there and kept putting in money every month. We did not open it at all.

I picked up the box and knocked on my neighbor’s door.

The old man living next to us used to be a carpenter when he was younger. So, he had all the tools I needed.

His granddaughter was in middle school. She knew that I had requested his help to open the box and found it interesting. So, she started to record a video of the process.

After he opened the box, green papers flew out.

“Huh? Is this fake money?” The young girl gasped.

I picked them up and discovered that there was indeed some fake money in there.

“Paige, more than half of the money here is fake. Your boyfriend’s been lying to you!” the young girl said sympathetically.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I laughed at myself. “Yeah. I’m such a fool, aren’t I?”

It turned out that Desmond had lied to me from the start. I was the only one living a pitiful life and thinking about our future together.

When Desmond returned, he saw the opened money box and the fake money scattered all across the floor.

He felt guilty so he carefully said, “Paige, I just wanted to have a bit more money on me. I didn’t mean to lie to you. If I don’t have some money on me as a man, how would others view me, right?

“Besides, my mother said that their house is big enough for us to stay with them. There’s no need for us to buy another house.

“Just think about it. If we stay with our parents, we can take care of each other. My parents will make dinner for us after we return home from work, so you don’t have to trouble yourself to buy groceries and cook. We can just give them some money to cover our expenses. It’s better than paying a mortgage.”

As the disappointment built up in me, I looked at Desmond, who kept talking.

“If you didn’t want to save money, you could’ve just told me instead of putting in fake money to lie to me. You could’ve also told me if you didn’t want to share your salary with me. You don’t have to secretly give it to Nova. Do you find it amusing to see Nova doll herself up with your money, while I look like a hag just because I’m being frugal for our future?”

Desmond shook his head anxiously. “No, you’ve gotten it wrong. I’m just worried that you’d be unhappy. That’s why I didn’t tell you. You know that I’m family friends with Nova’s family, so I have to take good care of her. Nova’s been unstable since her divorce, and her father’s passed away. She only has her mother now. I only agreed to give her eight thousand dollars every month because I pitied her.”

Shortly after, Desmond pulled out a small gift box from his pocket. “I know I was wrong. I’ll tell you everything in the future. Please don’t be mad anymore. See, I even bought you a present.”

I opened the gift box and saw a necklace. It looked very similar to the one Nova was wearing.

“You bought two identical necklaces, right? Did you give Nova the other one?”

Desmond was stunned. “How did you know? I got two necklaces for twenty percent off, so I…”

I laughed in anger and threw a pillow at him.

Then, I chased him out of the house. “Get out right now! I don’t want to see you.”

I looked at the fake money on the floor and suddenly recalled the joint account that Desmond and I had.

I checked it, and the three hundred thousand dollars in the account was gone.