Canceled Check: The Leech's Downfall

After Cole called me an embarrassment—again—I walked straight into the financial aid office.

Heidi, the coordinator, stared at me in disbelief. "Maeve, Cole is the most promising out of all our grant recipients.

Are you absolutely certain you want to pull his funding?" Before I could open my mouth, my phone buzzed against my palm.

Three rapidfire texts from Cole. [Where is my allowance for this month?] [I literally just gave you a reality check.

Stop being such a snowflake.] [You're twentyeight, not some little girl. Grow up.] A dry scoff scraped my throat.

I slid the freshly signed cancellation form across the desk and met Heidi's gaze. "I'm certain.

Cut him off." Chapter 1 Heidi stared at me, her hand hovering in the air before she finally took the form. "Maeve, are you kidding me?

Cole is about to lock in his grad school fellowship. Pulling his funding right now… the optics are terrible for both of you." "I know." "Aren't you two dating?

Did you have a fight?" She squinted at me, trying to piece it together.

In everyone else's eyes, landing a guy like Cole was just the fat girl hitting the jackpot. "We're nothing." The words tasted like ash, a dull throb expanding beneath my ribs. "It was just on paper.

For show." Heidi's mouth opened and closed. Her fingers tapped the edge of the keyboard. "Can I ask why?

From the outside looking in, you guys fought hard to be together." I held her gaze. "It was never real." I paused, letting the truth settle. "And he doesn't need me anymore." That part was a stonecold fact.

Cole had his grad school spot locked down under a heavyweight advisor. His future was goldplated.

He was surrounded by a whole entourage of frat brothers and starryeyed underclassmen.

He was lightyears away from the broke kid who needed my monthly wire transfer just to keep his enrollment active. Keeping me around was strictly PR.

He needed the 'grateful guy' aesthetic. I was just a prop in his rebranding. Heidi searched my face for a long moment before letting out a breath.

Her fingers hit the keys. "Once I hit submit, this is irreversible." She paused over the enter key. "Maeve, are you absolutely sure? You've funded him for three years.

You're practically at the finish line…" "Do it." My voice didn't waver. The sheer exhaustion of the last few years pressed down on my shoulders.

In the very beginning, I just wanted to help him. How the hell did we end up here? The first time I saw Cole was at a financial aid mixer.

He was a high school sophomore back then, all sharp angles and defensive posture, backed into a corner and refusing to make eye contact with anyone in the room.

I didn't pick him because of his looks, and I definitely didn't pick him because of his GPA. It was the look in his eyes. He had this raw, feral defiance burning in his pupils.

It was the exact same hunger I saw every time I looked in the mirror. I grew up dirt poor.

Because I wore clothes fished out of donation bins and thrift store clearance racks, I got shredded by the other kids. I was the punching bag. The outcast.

The whole world went out of its way to tell me I was trash, that I didn't belong, that I wasn't worth a dime. I refused to swallow that pill.

I grinded through school, clawed my way into a decent college, and landed a solid corporate job.

I started putting my own paychecks toward funding broke kids because I knew exactly what poverty tasted like. Chapter 2 I used to think Cole was cut from the same cloth as me.

I thought he understood. When he first accepted the grant, he stood right in front of me, dead serious. "Maeve, I promise you.

I'll pay you back for this." His eyes had been so bright back then. So fiercely earnest. I had laughed and told him, "You don't owe me anything.

Just keep your grades up." He shook his head. "I'll pay you back. I swear." Now I knew better.

His version of "paying me back" was throwing me a bone—slapping the label of "boyfriend" on himself like it was a charity tax writeoff.

It kept me trailing behind him like a stray dog begging for scraps, only for him to constantly remind me I wasn't good enough for his shiny new life.

For a while, the gaslighting messed with my head. I wondered if someone who looked like me had any business funding anyone at all.

If some rich, polished socialite had been signing his checks, maybe his trajectory would have been even higher. But that didn't matter anymore.

Cutting him loose meant cutting myself loose, too. Heidi didn't push the issue again.

Halfway through processing the cancellation, she glanced up from her monitor. "Maeve, would you be open to redirecting those funds to another student?" "We have a few exceptional kids in the system right now.

They're killing themselves trying to balance a full course load with minimumwage shifts.

If someone stepped in so they could just focus on academics, their potential would skyrocket." My stomach dropped. Honestly? I was terrified.

The thought of accidentally funding another Cole made my throat tighten.

I couldn't stomach the idea of bleeding my bank account dry for someone, only to have them look down their nose and ask if I was worthy of their time. "I…" I stared at the edge of her desk for a long time.

Finally, I gave a stiff nod. I started doing this to help kids who were suffocating under the same poverty I grew up in. I needed to reset to that baseline. One more chance.

I flipped through the thick stack of applicant files. So many names. So many kids grinding their way out of the dirt.

They all deserved a shot, but I only had the budget to pull one of them up. After scouring the pages, I tapped my finger on a file. The name read Beckett.

I specifically filtered for a female student this time—surely a girl wouldn't drag me into any more of this messy relationship drama, right? "Her," I said.

I scrawled my signature at the bottom of the new agreement. The second the pen lifted from the paper, a heavy, suffocating pressure evaporated from my chest.

This time, I just hoped whoever was on the receiving end wouldn't treat my lifeline like a joke. "Processing takes about five business days," Heidi said, sliding the paperwork into a manila folder. "Once it clears, we'll send out the official notifications to both parties." She hesitated, her tone softening. "Technically, you have the right to terminate the grant unilaterally.

But considering you've funded Cole for so long… and the fact that you currently pay the lease on his apartment… you really need to give him a headsup." She was right.

The last three years had mutated into a toxic mess, but I needed to close the loop cleanly. I pushed through the glass doors of the financial aid building.

The afternoon sun hit my face, warm and blinding. I stood at the top of the concrete steps and exhaled a breath I felt like I'd been holding for months. Five days.

I had five days to cleanly sever ties and say my final goodbye to Cole.

Regardless of how deeply he'd screwed me over, I had watched him grow from a ragged teenager into the powerhouse he was today.

He morphed into someone unrecognizable, but my original intent stayed intact. I came here to pull kids out of the trenches. As for Cole… he'd be thrilled.

He was finally ditching the fat, embarrassing anchor weighing down his aesthetic. The decision was locked in.

The crushing weight was gone, leaving my limbs feeling incredibly, wonderfully light. Chapter 3 On my walk back, I passed the bakery I used to practically live at.

I hadn't let myself touch a single slice of cake since Cole and I made it official.

He made sure to remind me daily that someone my size had no business looking at highcalorie garbage. Yesterday was my birthday.

I bought a tiny, singleserve cupcake just to have a candle to blow out. He swatted it straight into the trash can.

He had glared at the frosted mess in the bin. "Will it kill you to skip a meal?

You're already huge, and you just keep stuffing your face." "That's not—" I just wanted to explain it was my birthday. I just wanted to take one bite.

He cut me off before the words even left my throat. "Not what?

Not built like a pig?" He stepped closer, his shadow falling over me. "Do you have any idea how people look at me when I'm with you?" Cole was objectively gorgeous.

Sharp jawline, straight nose, the kind of height that commanded the room the second he walked in.

And he used that godtier face to look down at me like I was something scraped off the bottom of his shoe.

I wiped a stray speck of frosting off my cheek, my voice deadpan. "Cole, if I'm such an embarrassment to you, we can just break up.

We can go back to just being a donor and a student. Wouldn't that be easier?" A dull ache radiated through my ribs. He was the one who pursued me in the beginning.

Having a guy that completely out of my league show interest… I ate it up. I knew it was a bad idea, but I let my guard down inch by inch until I was in too deep.

But standing there, staring at the ruined cake, the reality check hit me like a freight train. This "relationship" was just slowly tearing me apart.

He let out a harsh, barking laugh. "Break up? So you can go around playing the victim and telling everyone how terrible I am to you?" "That's what you fat girls do best, right?

Throwing a pity party." The dam broke, and all his resentment spilled out. "You really think I want to be seen with someone like you?

If I wasn't trying to pay off the massive debt I owe you for funding me, I wouldn't touch this with a tenfoot pole. Don't push your luck, Maeve." He didn't come home last night.

I never got my birthday cake. Today, I was getting my damn cake. I'd spent the last three years pouring everything into other people; it was time I bought myself a sugar rush.

I pushed open the heavy glass door of the bakery. Right there, front and center, were Cole and his junior, Daphne. Daphne was my exact polar opposite.

Long flowing hair, modeltall, porcelain skin. The look Cole gave her? I had never seen that expression on his face. It was soft. Careful. Almost reverent.

He took a small gourmet slice from the server, scooped up a bite, and held the fork right to Daphne's lips. "Try it. This flavor is insane.

I waited in line forever for this." Daphne's cheeks flushed.

She leaned in and took a delicate bite. "Wow, it really is." She smiled up at him. "You try." They fed each other right there in the middle of the shop.

Two gorgeous people in their own little bubble. If Cole wasn't supposedly my boyfriend, it would have looked like a scene straight out of a movie.

I yanked the door shut and stumbled backward onto the pavement. I didn't even realize I was crying until the hot tears dripped off my chin.

It felt like someone was taking a sledgehammer to my sternum—rhythmic, crushing blows that wouldn't kill me but made my knees buckle and forced the oxygen out of my lungs.

He knew how to smile. He knew how to be gentle. Just not with me.

I wiped the back of my hand roughly across my face, turned on my heel, and practically sprinted all the way back to the apartment.

He didn't walk through the front door until ten o'clock that night. The second he saw me sitting on the living room sofa, his jaw clenched. "Why are you still here?

It's late." He dropped his keys on the counter. "Look, we need boundaries.

I know you pay my bills, but I'm not sleeping with you to settle a tab." A hot spike of anger shot up my spine. "I'm sorry, aren't we supposedly dating?" Chapter 4 "Cole, you were the one who came after me.

You're the one who refused to call it quits." Cole rolled his eyes, his lip curling. "You're twentyeight.

Are you completely oblivious?" He crossed his arms. "You really think I chased you because I liked you? I did it to pay off my debt.

It was a thankyou for the charity." A dry laugh scraped my throat. "Then you don't have to force yourself to play boyfriend anymore.

I pulled your funding." Cole's head snapped back. "Excuse me?" "I submitted the cancellation paperwork to the financial aid office.

Starting next week, the wire transfers stop." His gaze dragged up and down my body, calculating. "You're trying to back me into a corner." He leaned in, using his height to box me in. "You want me to beg, don't you?

You want me on my knees thanking you for your saintly generosity?

Or wait—is this your twisted way of getting me into your bed?" Bile rose in the back of my throat as I stared up at his flawless face. "I don't want you to beg." I stepped back, breaking his shadow. "And I definitely don't want you in my bed." "I'm just delivering a fact.

The grant is dead." He didn't buy a single word. A muscle feathered in his jaw. "Listen to me, Maeve.

If you actually pull that money, I'll air out everything you've done for the last three years." "I'll tell the whole campus how you stalked me.

How you backed me into a corner to be your boyfriend. How you dangled that grant over my head like a leash." "I didn't!" My nails dug into my palms. I never did.

The funding was always a clean slate.

When we were together, I genuinely thought we were building something real. "You did." He held my gaze, unblinking. "Every single time we fight, you bring up the money." "Don't act dumb.

You wanted to buy my loyalty." The denial died on my tongue. I replayed the tape in my head. He was right—I had brought it up.

Whenever he tore me down, I would tell him, If you're so miserable, just drop the boyfriend title. We can just go back to donor and student. I thought I was offering him an out.

To him, it was an ultimatum. The exhaustion settled deep into my bones. I let out a slow breath. "If you think I'm threatening you, then consider this my official notice.

The funding is gone." I pointed at the door. "Get out." He froze. The smugness slipped off his face. "Pack your stuff.

Once the paperwork clears, a new grant recipient is taking over this lease. I'm dead serious, Cole. In one week, we are nothing." A dark flush crept up his neck.

He let out a harsh breath. "Fine. You want to play it like this, Maeve?" "Fine." He spun on his heel, stalked into the guest bedroom, and slammed the door. The drywall rattled.

I stared at the closed door, the tension draining out of my shoulders. The process was a trainwreck, but the line was finally drawn. I walked to my own bedroom.

Before my back even hit the mattress, my screen lit up. [Don't think pulling the plug is going to scare me, Maeve.] [I don't need you to survive.] I swiped the notifications away.

Five minutes later, the phone buzzed again. [Out of all the donors, you're the fattest and the brokest.] [Funding me was the highlight of your pathetic life, and you're actually pulling out!] [Look, considering you paid my way for three years, I'll give you one chance to beg for my forgiveness.] Chapter 5 [If you come begging in the next ten minutes, I might consider forgiving you.] I didn't type a single letter.

Exactly ten minutes later, the screen lit up again. [I'm apartment hunting tomorrow.] [Maeve!

Don't come crying to me when you regret this.] I hit the power button, plunging the room into darkness, and rolled over. Regret? Not a snowball's chance in hell.

For the next few days, Cole actually hit the pavement looking for a place.

He left before dawn and came back late, marching straight into his room and slamming the door without a word.

If we crossed paths in the living room, he'd shoot me this weird, expectant glare, waiting for me to crack. I didn't give him an inch.

On the fourth morning, he blocked the front door just as I grabbed my purse. "Maeve, are you seriously trying to play hard to get?" My brows pulled together. "What?" "You pulled the funding just to make me sweat, didn't you?" He crossed his arms, waiting for the confession.

Today was the final day before the paperwork cleared. In his twisted reality, this was my absolute last chance to drop to my knees and beg him to stay.

I shoved his arm out of the doorway. "No. I was dead serious." Cole let out a harsh bark of a laugh. "Well, spoiler alert—it didn't work. I already signed a lease.

I'm moving out next week." Smugness dripped from every word. He really thought dropping that bomb would make me fold.

In his mind, there was zero logical universe where the fat girl voluntarily dumped the hot boyfriend. To him, this was all a massive bluff.

I didn't even blink. "That's great." His smug smile vanished. The color drained from his face. "That's it?

You don't have anything else to say?" I tilted my head. "Do you need me to help you pack?" The veins in his neck popped. "Maeve, you are going to regret this!" A dry laugh bubbled up in the back of my throat.

He sounded like a broken record. The louder he yelled, the more the invisible grip he had on my lungs loosened. After my shift that evening, I swung by the mall.

Beckett was moving in soon. Since she was a girl, I figured I should prep the guest room.

I picked up a blushpink bed set, a decent skincare kit, a lighted vanity mirror, and a pair of fuzzy slippers. Stuff any college girl would actually use.

Shopping bags digging into my palms, I took the shortcut past the campus west gate. That's when I spotted them. Cole and Daphne.

He leaned in, whispering something that made Daphne duck her head and press herself flush against his chest. Then, Cole reached into his jacket pocket.

He pulled out a vivid green jade necklace and fastened it around Daphne's neck.

Daphne let out a little gasp, tracing the stone before standing on her tiptoes to press a kiss to his jaw. My boots glued to the concrete. That was my grandmother's necklace.

When she died, I was twelve. There were no final goodbyes, just that piece of jade.

I wore it tucked under my shirt every single day until my corporate job slapped me with a strict zerojewelry dress code.

To keep it safe, I locked it inside the jewelry box on my bedroom dresser. And Cole stole it. He stole my dead grandmother's necklace to play sugar daddy for Daphne.

The shopping bags dropped from my hands. I lunged forward, fingers clawing blindly for the jade. Cole's palms slammed into my shoulders, shoving me backward.

My boots slipped, and the rough concrete tore into my knees.

Chapter 6 His lip curled in disgust. "Maeve, are you stalking me?" He let out a scoff, stepping squarely in front of Daphne to shield her. "Couldn't even make it a full week before crawling back to beg, huh?

Too bad." "Daphne already got her dad, Professor Lin, to sponsor my fellowship.

I don't have to put up with a pathetic, fat loser like you anymore." Daphne gave me a slow, sweeping upanddown look, her nose wrinkling. "Honestly? Look in a mirror.

Stop obsessing over my boyfriend." I already knew the kind of garbage he spewed about me behind my back. None of that mattered right now.

The only thing tethering me to reality was the green jade resting against her collarbone. "That is my necklace." A tremor ripped through my vocal cords.

It was already clasped around Daphne's neck. Two against one.

The sick realization that I was outnumbered and outmatched pressed heavy on my chest. "Yours?" Cole let out a harsh laugh. "I bought this for Daphne." "You're lying." The words tore out of my throat. "That belonged to my grandmother.

Give it back!" I lunged forward, my fingers clawing blindly for the jade. His palms slammed into my chest.

Concrete scraped my skin as I hit the ground for the second time. "Where's your proof?" He stared down at me, his eyes dead flat, like he was watching a sideshow freak. "You really think someone built like you deserves to wear something this nice?

Even if it was yours, putting it on Daphne is the best thing that ever happened to it." Heat prickled behind my eyes, acidic and sharp.

I dug my fingernails into my palms until the urge to cry receded into a dull ache.

I held out a shaking, scraped hand. "Give it back." The words felt like sandpaper. "Please, Cole." A sick, satisfied smirk played on his lips. "Begging isn't going to work.

Putting a piece like this on a fat chick is a complete waste." He kicked at the toe of my boot. "Take a hint and get out of here. We're done, and your name is off my grant.

You have zero leverage." He wasn't going to give it back. A hard shudder racked my spine. The sheer inertia of my heavy frame vanished, replaced by a cold, sudden momentum.

I shot up from the pavement, dodging past Cole's shoulder, and locked my fist around the jade just as Daphne reached up to unclip it. "Cole bought this for me!

Let go!" Daphne shrieked, her perfectly manicured fingers digging into the gold chain. She yanked backward, but I had a hundred pounds of leverage on her.

She stumbled forward, letting out a dramatic wail of pain, and ripped her hands away. The jade slipped from my grip. It hit the pavement with a sickening, hollow crack.

Shattered into three jagged, irredeemable pieces. "Are you crazy?

I literally let it go, and you broke it yourself!" Daphne whined, burying her face into Cole's chest, her shoulders shaking with fake sobs. "You can't blame me for that." I stared at the green shards scattered across the gray concrete.

All the oxygen evaporated from my lungs. "Are you happy now?" Cole's voice dropped over me, coated in ice. I dropped to my knees.

My fingers convulsed as I reached out, scraping my nails against the asphalt to gather the broken jade. "This is exactly how toxic you are." Cole sneered. "If you can't have it, you destroy it." "Just like the necklace.

Just like my grant." I kept my chin glued to my chest. If I tilted my head even a fraction of an inch, the hot wetness pooling in my eyes would spill over.

I refused to give him that satisfaction. "Hey, don't cry, baby.

I'll make more money and buy you something ten times better." His voice morphed instantly, dropping into that sickeningly gentle register he reserved exclusively for her. "Let's go.

Don't let a psycho ruin your night." The sharp click of Daphne's heels and the heavy thud of Cole's boots faded down the block.

I knelt alone on the pavement, my fist closed tight around the jagged edges of my grandmother's legacy. The dam finally snapped. A ragged, ugly sob tore its way out of my throat.

I couldn't stop shaking. Pedestrians swerved to avoid me. Their whispers drifted down through the cold air. "Look at that big girl crying on the sidewalk.

That's so pathetic." "Probably just got dumped." "I mean, look at her. What did she expect?" I pulled a crumpled tissue from my pocket and carefully wrapped up the shattered jade.

My legs felt like lead, my joints trembling as I forced myself to stand. I didn't walk back to the apartment.

I took a hard right at the intersection, pushed through the heavy glass doors of the local police precinct, and walked straight up to the front desk.

Chapter 7 In the past, I would have swallowed the insult and laughed it off. Not this time.

I marched straight up to the local precinct's intake desk and filed a formal police report. They brought Cole in for questioning less than an hour later.

The second he spotted me in the waiting area, his jaw locked tight enough to snap a bone. "You actually called the cops." He let out a dark, disbelieving laugh. "Wow, Maeve.

You really outdid yourself this time." He turned to the desk officer, his rigid posture instantly melting into the perfect picture of an innocent, exasperated college kid. "Officer, I bought that necklace with my own money.

She smashed it on the pavement during a tantrum, and I didn't even demand compensation. Now she's trying to frame me for theft?" My lungs seized.

I shoved my chair back, the metal legs screeching against the linoleum. "You're lying! You stole it straight out of my bedroom!" Cole arched a single, perfect eyebrow.

A small, agonizingly patronizing smile played on his lips. "Maeve, filing a false police report is a literal felony. You're accusing me of stealing.

Do you have a single shred of proof?" He turned back to the officer, letting out a heavy, longsuffering sigh. "Look, Officer… Maeve and I have a complicated history.

She developed this obsession with me." "I tried to break things off a while ago, but she refused to accept it.

She's just holding a grudge." "She even threatened to cut off my financial aid and humiliate me in front of the whole campus if I left her.

I tried to just ride it out and keep the peace, but I never thought she'd pull a stunt like this…" "You—" My fingernails bit so deeply into my palms I felt the skin threaten to break.

The officer shifted his gaze to me, his eyes heavy with tired skepticism. "Ma'am, what exactly is your relationship with this young man?" "He's a student I fund through a university grant." The words ground out between my teeth. "We are completely over.

He stole my family heirloom, put it on his new girlfriend, and then destroyed it!" Cole sat motionless in his plastic chair, the picture of rationality.

Against his eerie calm, I looked exactly like the hysterical, unhinged exgirlfriend he was painting me to be.

He dropped his voice into that sickeningly gentle register—the exact tone you'd use to talk down a toddler throwing a tantrum in a grocery store. "I know you're hurting, Maeve.

But you can't act like this. You're falsely accusing me of grand larceny. Where are the receipts?" "Where is your proof? Besides, the necklace shattered while you were holding it.

You can pull the campus security footage right now, Officer.

She lunged at us out of nowhere and physically assaulted my girlfriend in the process." He let out another soft sigh, shaking his head. "Look, let's just drop this.

Making a scene at a police station is just embarrassing for everyone." "You paid my tuition for years, so I'm not going to press assault charges against you.

Just stop this ridiculous behavior." He knew exactly what he was doing. He knew I had zero leverage. I didn't have security cameras mounted inside my own apartment.

The jade was passed down from my dead grandmother—there were no digital receipts, no certificates of authenticity, absolutely nothing to definitively prove it belonged to me.

And when the precinct pulled the grainy streetcam footage? It showed my hand physically closing around the jade a split second before it hit the concrete.

The officer gave me a look of tired pity and closed the file right then and there. I pushed out the heavy glass doors into the cold night air.

Before my boots could even hit the sidewalk, Cole called out from the top of the precinct steps. "Maeve!

You are going to severely regret trying to pull this on me." All the frantic panic from earlier evaporated, leaving behind a cold, numb void.

I turned around and took a long, hard look at him. This was the face I used to think hung the moon and stars. Now?

He just looked pathetic. "I already regret it." My voice was dead flat. "I regret ever signing that first check." The smug smirk froze on his mouth.

I didn't stick around to coddle his ego. I turned my back and walked away. By the time I unlocked my apartment door, my legs were running on fumes.

I spent an hour scrubbing the internet for specialized jade restorers, carefully wrapped the shattered fragments in layers of bubble wrap, and boxed them up to ship.

I hadn't even collapsed onto the sofa yet when the front door clicked open. Cole actually had the nerve to show his face here.

He walked into the entryway, caught my deadeyed stare, and then his gaze landed on the shopping bags I'd left on the dining table—the blushpink bedding, the vanity mirror, the expensive skincare kit.

A slow, wildly arrogant grin spread across his face. "Wow, Maeve.

You really love playing these twisted mind games, don't you?" He pointed at the bags. "You bought all this stuff just to get my attention?" Chapter 8