"Zeke was right. You're only with me for my money."

Tessa transferred 1.88 dollars to me via her phone and added a note, labeling me as "Leech".

During the seven years we had been together, I had never spent a single cent of Tessa's. I would even prepare gifts for her during our anniversaries or on special days.

Tessa would accept them without any qualms, but she never prepared anything for me. She would remark sarcastically that men should buy their girlfriends gifts to make them happy, and that it was their duty.

Despite this, she had described me as a leech.

As an heiress from the upper class of Jetland, Tessa was worth tens of billions of dollars.

I thought of the list of presents that she had prepared for Zeke Palmer.

I thought of my mother, who had been tormented by her disease and had passed away in great pain because we hadn't had the money for treatment.

I did not want to face Tessa for a single moment longer.

I had just got up to leave when there was a noise at the door once more.

Zeke called Tessa's name with love in his voice as he walked in, taking off his coat. However, he looked startled and jumped in fright when he saw me.

"Ethan, what are you doing here?"

I turned to look at Tessa. "Unless I'm mistaken, this is the place we rent together. Not only did you give the password of the digital doorlock to someone else, but you even let him barge in."

Upon hearing this, Zeke looked as if I had wronged him immensely. He ran over and wrapped his arm around Tessa's shoulder as he sat down beside her.

"Tess, how could I be an outsider? I only came to stay the night because I forgot to bring the keys to my place.

"Besides, if Tess hadn't agreed to split the rent for this place, you'd have to pay it all by yourself. No matter how you look at it, you're the one with an advantage."

I wondered how often Zeke had made such provocative remarks without my knowledge.

When Tessa heard this, she did not feel like she had made a mistake. To her, Zeke made perfect sense.

"Zeke's right. I have a place of my own, and I'm really the one at a disadvantage here since I have to share the rent with you. This is just like spending money on escort services. There's no difference."

She showed me her bank account number.

"You don't want people to call you a leech, do you? Pay me back for the rent that I've paid over the past seven years."

…

Tessa and I had rented the apartment when we first got together. It was only about 450 square feet in size.

After graduating from university, I stayed in Jetland to work and earn more money. At the time, I had only been able to afford the rent for a cramped place that was far away from the city.

Tessa had been the one who said that the place was too far away and that it would be inconvenient for her to visit me.

It was also Tessa who had said that it wasn't a place fit to live in, and that it would ruin the mood for her to get intimate with me.

She wanted to rent a bigger place with me.

Therefore, I took on the pressure of a high rental fee and got a part-time job with the extra time I had from a shorter commute.

Now, not only did she want me to return her half of the rent for the past seven years, she even felt that she had been paying to sleep with me and that it was her loss.

"Tessa, it's been seven years. What am I to you?"

My expression was filled with humiliation and rage, and I couldn't help but feel regret.

I had wasted seven years of my youth on someone like her.

Her hand was still stretched out in front of me, but it shook slightly when she saw my dejected expression.

She pressed her lips together and withdrew her hand. "I was just joking. After all—"

Before she could finish, Zeke clicked his tongue again and looked contemptuous.

"How could you have the audacity to claim that you're not after Tess' money? If it weren't for her, you wouldn't be able to afford such a nice place to live in.

"Tess, I think you should stop renting this next month. You can't let outsiders keep taking advantage of you. Alternatively, you can tell Ethan to write you an IOU. That would be fair."

If it wasn't illegal to hit people, I would have slapped Tessa and Zeke. But if I did that, they would definitely find a way to scam me out of my money.

Rich people with no morals loved malicious games like that. I had played along with them for seven years.

It was more than enough. I wasn't going to do it any longer.

"I won't write an IOU. If you want money, then sue me. We'll see who's the loser. Also, I refuse to stay in this place any longer.

"Since you want to stay for a night, Mr. Palmer, remember to pay Tess the rental fee. Otherwise, you'll be considered a leech too."

I was about to leave when Tessa grabbed hold of me. The playful expression she had had earlier was gone, replaced by a reproachful anger.

"Ethan, must you go this far? Zeke and I were just joking. I advise you to think this through. Once you leave, you won't be able to stay in such a nice place any longer."

I had made a terrible, ridiculous mistake.

I shouldn't have given up on the idea of breaking up with Tessa when I found out that she was one of the heiresses in Jetland's upper class, just because she had persuaded me.

Whenever Tessa felt that I was greedy for her money, she would keep talking about equality in love and that we should not let money control us. I never should have believed her.

The only thing I had in mind back then was during the coldest time in winter, she had let me warm my hands on her stomach. When I had a headache, she would massage my head gently with her warm hands.

We had once been in love, and we had once been sweet together. However, we should not have let money taint our love.

"Tessa, let's break up." Once I said the words, Tessa's tantalizing smile finally dropped. There was a tinge of panic in her expression.

"Break up? Ethan, are you actually breaking up with me? I won't agree to it! What right do you have to dump me? Even if you're throwing a tantrum, you should know your limits."

Tessa had always acted as if she were superior. It was as if she were doing me a favor by dating me.

I merely looked impassively at her.

"I'm not throwing a tantrum. Since you keep thinking that I'm a leech who's out to get your money, you'd better find someone who has the same status as you so that you can have an equal relationship."

I did not want to say a single word more. I turned around and went back to the bedroom to continue packing my things.

After about half a minute, I heard Tessa scream angrily, "Don't regret this, Ethan!"

I ignored her threats and did not care when she left with Zeke, slamming the door behind her.

I had persisted in our relationship for seven years, even though I had been treated like a leech while doing so.

I did not blame Tessa for the fact that I had been unable to save my mother's life.

It was true that she was not obligated to lend me money.

However, at the time when I needed help the most, she had ignored me and even called me a leech. I had even gone down on my knees with an IOU and begged her to save my mother.

I had completely lost hope in her and our seven-year relationship.

…

Late that night, I walked along an empty street with all my luggage.

Jetland was huge, but there was no place for me there. I no longer had any reason to stay.

My mother was gone, and I had parted ways with the woman I loved.

Every further second I spent there would just make me feel more grief.

I had nowhere to go, so I sat in the lobby of a nearby hospital for the whole night.

When I went to work the next day, the first thing I did was to resign from my job.

My superior looked shocked when she received my resignation letter.

"You're resigning? Has Ms. Seinfeld agreed to let you do so?" my superior asked.

"By the way, you won't get much of a bonus for this month if you resign now. I'll transfer the rest of your salary to your account."

I frowned. There was too much information, and it took me a while to process everything my superior said.

What did she mean by transferring it to my account? Since when did I receive bonuses?

More importantly, why had she mentioned Tessa?

When my superior saw how confused I looked, she looked equally puzzled.

"Aren't you dating Ms. Seinfeld? She was the one who gave the finance department special instructions to pay you your salary separately.

"You were given your basic salary, but any bonuses and salary increments were put in a different account. She said you needed to save money.

"I didn't expect you to still be so frugal with someone like Ms. Seinfeld as your girlfriend. That's rare to see."

That was why I had only received my starting salary for so many years.

I had requested again and again for an increase in my salary, to no avail. It turned out that it wasn't because I wasn't diligent enough at my job. It was because Tessa had transferred all of it to a different account.

When I went to the finance department to request my payroll records, I saw "two thousand dollars" written in bold letters in the box that indicated the amount of my expected bonus.

A few days ago, I had been one day late in paying the hospital because I had been scrambling to find the last two thousand dollars that I needed.

As a result, my mother passed away before she could get her operation.

What was even more laughable was that the total amount of the bonuses I should have received over the past seven years, which Tessa had withheld, would have been more than enough to treat my mother's condition.

I had been a complete fool.

I had been so foolish that all I had done was to work hard. I had been terrified of being fired and losing my means of making a living.

I had been such a fool that I had not realized Tessa's deception.

I had never spent her money so that she wouldn't think of me as a leech, but she had been the one who had transferred away all the fruits of my labor.

I had actually persisted for seven years in a relationship that was full of nothing but lies and humiliation.

I was on my way to find Tessa with my payroll records so that I could settle the score with her when she strutted up to me.

"Ethan, all we had was a minor argument, and you left home? You even resigned! I think you're becoming more and more hot-tempered."

Zeke was behind her, looking gleeful at my discomfiture.

He walked over and said insincerely, "Ethan, you really have no conscience at all. You spent Tess' money and lived in the place that she rented for you. Without her, could you even survive in Jetland?"

He was so thick-skinned that he could lie with a straight face.

I laughed out of sheer anger. I was about to defend myself when Tessa interrupted me.

"Zeke's right. If I hadn't been around for the past seven years, you'd have starved to death long ago. I'll just think of today as you throwing a tantrum, and you can have the day off. Come home with me. I won't dock your pay for not going to work today."

…

The more I saw Tessa's true colors, the more I wondered how blind I had been over the past seven years.

People around me began to point and mutter amongst themselves. Since Tessa did not stop them, their voices became louder.

"Ms. Seinfeld hid her identity because she didn't want Ethan to feel insecure. She also told us to keep it a secret, which shows just how much she cares about him."

"He lives off Ms. Seinfeld, and yet he's losing his temper with her?"

"If he wants to go from rags to riches, he should reflect on whether or not he's capable of doing so. He'd be nothing without Ms. Seinfeld."

The more the people around us speculated, the more triumphant Tessa was.

Zeke kept egging them on and heaped a pile of false accusations on me. "Ethan, didn't you lie because you wanted two thousand dollars from Tess? You even said that your mother was about to die and needed the money to survive."