He Never Asked Where the Money Went

I'm a gold digger. I dated the youngest Vance boy for six months and asked him for thirty thousand dollars. So he dumped me.

He went and found himself a girl too classy to take presents.

The comments under his post were nothing but congratulations. [Congrats to Vance for finally shaking off that gold digger.] [His new girl is amazing.

So much better than that Ivy Hale.] Why drag me in to prop her up? But I was busy. Busy making money. Busy paying off a debt.

Twentyfive hundred dollars a month, and not a dollar of it late. Too busy to ask Nathaniel why a boy who promised to keep me safe turned around and stopped meaning it. Later on.

He started showing up where I worked. He'd follow me and beg. "Ivy. Take all of it. All my money. Just look at me again. Please." No. Not a chance. He lied to me once.

I wasn't going to let him do it twice. He never once asked where that thirty thousand went. He never asked what it cost me, every single time I had to open my mouth and ask.

Chapter 1 He'd been official for twelve hours by the time I saw the post. I'd just gotten back from a tutoring job. Gated communities are always far.

I finished a physics session with a high school senior, got on my scooter, secondhand or maybe fifthhand, and it was already midnight when I made it home. Midnight.

Making a girl who'd just been dumped watch her ex show off his new love is a special kind of cruel. I looked anyway. Tapped right in.

In the photo, Nathaniel held a beautiful girl's hand and smiled like his whole life had worked out. Damn it. Some people really are born lucky. He'd landed Celeste.

The one everybody at the dance conservatory talked about. He didn't deserve her. The comments mostly agreed with me. Not entirely.

Somewhere between the congratulations and the envy, I found my own name. [Congrats to Vance for dumping the ex who only wanted his money!] [Not only did he get rid of Ivy Hale, he found an amazing girl!] [I was there today!

He bought his new girl a pile of designer bags and jewelry and she handed back every single piece! She told him, "Nathaniel, I don't want any of this. I only want you."] [Ohhh.

Ohhh. OHHH.] [They're perfect. I'm obsessed.] [His new girl is unreal. So much better than that Ivy Hale.] Do these people not have anything else to talk about?

Why drag me in to prop her up? They could at least block me. Or maybe that was the point. Then again, they weren't wrong. All I ever did was ask Nathaniel for money.

Six months together. Thirty thousand dollars. They had every right to look down on me.

I just never told him where the money went, and I wasn't going to, because I've already seen how people love you when you live with your hand out. First they pity you.

Then they can't stand you. My thumb opened the photo again. Celeste's head on his shoulder. That bright, easy smile.

Nothing like my face, which always looked like it was counting something. The basement had bad wiring. It always did. The light flickered. Terrible.

How did it flicker the tears right out of me? Must have been a hard one. Even my eyes couldn't take it. Why else would they keep leaking? No matter how much I wiped. Ivy.

Didn't we agree, the year we turned eighteen and got out of Halloway, that we were done crying? So why are you crying again? Love. It really does ruin your discipline.

Cry all you want, but don't waste the electricity. Electricity is expensive. I shut off the light. Then there was nothing left to see.

When you can't see, everything else gets louder. I could smell the damp in the walls. Next door, a mouse was working at the wood. I pushed my face into the blanket.

Same as when I was small. However bad it got, if I cried long enough I'd fall asleep. Then my phone lit up on the pillow. That number.

The one that's been in my life since grade school. [Your twentyfive hundred hasn't landed this month.] [Don't make me come wait outside your school again.] The screen faded to black.

I lay there with my eyes open until the sky turned gray. Chapter 2 Sleep makes you forget the joke fate is playing on you. Then it stops hurting.

But every good dream ends with an alarm. I'm not one of those girls in a novel who gets dumped and dramatically moves abroad, or leaves the city for good. I have a degree to finish.

And paychecks nobody has handed me yet. Even if I walked away from all of it, the people I owe would find the door. What a joke. Once I was awake.

There was nothing to do but clean myself up and go do the same day over again. The problem was that Nathaniel had gone official loud.

A rich boy had put a drone show over half the city. By morning everyone knew Nathaniel Vance had a new girlfriend.

People passed me and lowered their voices. "Didn't he chase that ordinary girl all over campus? Six months and he's bored already?" "Who knows." "Makes sense, though.

They were never from the same world." "Right? Real life isn't a billionaire romance.

Why would a guy like that pass on a girl from his own circle for a Cinderella?" "At least Cinderella had a title. Ivy Hale has nothing—" I coughed.

The girl who was talking saw me and tugged her friend's sleeve, making a face. The conversation stopped dead.

Then Declan showed up and picked it right back up. "What are you all scared of? You're not wrong. A sparrow landed on a high branch.

That doesn't make it a swan." Declan hated me back when I was still with Nathaniel. Said I was materialistic. Said all I wanted was the Vance money.

A good part of why Nathaniel and I ended was standing right there. Of course he'd come kick me while I was down. I wanted to get around all of this.

He put himself in the doorway of my lecture hall instead. He leaned on the wall and laughed at me. "You feel guilty." I shook my head. I tried to step around him.

He moved with me. "No? Ivy, the money's written all over your face. You spent thirty thousand of his.

If you really don't care about getting rich, pay it back." Declan pushed the way collectors push. Like every time I got cornered outside the school gates as a kid.

But flinching only makes them go harder. I looked up and held his eyes. "I will." He kept going. "With what? You're nothing but a—" Orphan. He didn't say it.

He swallowed it, and it left him standing there with his mouth half open. Because nobody knew except my academic advisor. And Nathaniel. It slipped out once, talking to him.

He promised he'd keep it to himself. He told someone anyway. Liar. And that isn't even the biggest thing he lied about. I should have known better than to believe he'd keep me safe.

The money is real. I borrowed it. Every dollar of it is going back. I work. A lot. Dollar by dollar. Most of it is already gone. One day the rest will be too.

I opened my mouth to answer him. A voice I knew cut me off. "Leave her alone." Nathaniel. I didn't have to turn around to picture him.

Loose, careless, like nothing in the world could touch him. That kind of ease only comes with a good life. You can't learn it.

Then a bright voice right behind his. "Let it go, Declan." Warm. Gracious. Celeste. She came forward. Chin up. Everyone moved out of her way.

There was one thing I wanted to ask Nathaniel. Just one. That day you told me you'd keep me safe. Did you mean it? He never looked up. So I didn't ask.

Chapter 3 Celeste walked past me like she'd been trained for it. I felt the fabric of her dress brush my arm. Expensive. Soft. Beautiful.

That's what it looks like when a family spends money on a girl her whole life. My plain white tee just folded itself back into the rest of me, into everything I couldn't afford.

The contrast was brutal. Nobody said it out loud. Plenty of people were thinking it. Nathaniel followed her into the room. Goodlooking boy, gorgeous girl.

Two families in the same tax bracket. They looked better in person than in the photo. Willing or not, I still had to walk into that lecture hall. I can't skip.

My scholarship depends on my GPA. You need money to stay alive. You have to stay alive before you've earned the right to be sad about anything.

So I walked to the front row with everybody's eyes on me and sat in the seat I've always had. The boy who used to doze off beside me was sitting next to someone else now.

Even the professor's eyes snagged on me for half a second when she looked my way. Fate had a blunt way of telling me: You walk the rest of it alone.

Alone to class, and then straight to the café for my shift. I was deep in the weeds when the door opened. The chime rang out, bright and cheap.

I looked up and saw a crowd come in around a very happy couple. No time to duck. Somebody spotted me. "Well, look. Ivy Hale.

Vance dropped you, so now you can't fund that luxury lifestyle and you're out here working?" They laughed at their own joke.

Every line was uglier than the last. "Or are you hoping to hook another rich boy in a nice café like this?

Honestly, with a face like that, you've got the equipment." I wanted to say something back. The day we broke up, a complaint from Declan cost me a job. I didn't have the nerve.

I didn't have the standing. All I could do was look at Nathaniel. I knew he was done with me. But we had six months. At the start, I think he really did like me.

Even if that was over, there was no reason to let it get this ugly. His eyes moved across me and kept going. Like I was a detail that didn't matter.

Or maybe he was in a hurry to draw a line and prove something to his new girl. He turned to Celeste. "Baby, let's go somewhere else.

This place has bad energy—" Celeste wasn't interested in leaving. She made her voice small and sweet. "But I want their salted Oreo Basque cheesecake. What's the matter?

Don't want to see your ex? Or can't stand watching her wait on me?" The laughter rolled through them. "Vance, old flame or new flame, which is it?" "That's not even a question.

Who picks the ex who was in it for the money?" "Poor Ivy. That was a big meal ticket to lose." I couldn't tell you whether their laughter or a January wind is harder to stand in.

But I've learned how to smile through it. I ignored every look and worked. "The salted Oreo Basque cheesecake. Is that for here or to go?" The laughing thinned out.

I said it again. "For here or to go? Anything else with that? Our new coffees just dropped, and the matcha line is really good." I ran through the whole menu on my own. Careful.

Professional. Loud enough to bury them. The laughter pulled back an inch at a time. I raised my eyes and ran straight into Nathaniel's. I knew that look.

Six months ago he'd looked at me exactly like that and said, Ivy, I'm going to keep you safe. Chapter 4 My coworker finally caught up and started pitching drinks with me.

Nathaniel had never seen this version of me. I'd never seen this version of him. He studied me, and something moved behind his eyes. A question.

Then he seemed to talk himself out of it. He opened his mouth. Celeste got there first. "Nathaniel, your ex is good at this.

Great service." "I'll have the salted Oreo Basque cheesecake and an iced americano.

For here." She turned her face away and started talking to the others. "Their pastries are amazing, you should all get something.

On me today." Someone piped up. "Vance is standing right here. We can't let you pay." Celeste laughed and swatted him down. "I don't use my boyfriend's money.

I'm a modern independent woman. Not like somebody's ex." It wasn't a nice thing to say. But you hear worse than that in service. You hear worse than that on a Tuesday.

The problem was that I'd been spoiled once. That does something to you. Back then. Whenever a customer talked to me like that, I'd get furious. One time it boiled over.

I complained about it to Nathaniel on a date. He got angry on my behalf, all worked up, and then talked me down. "Just quit.

It's not like I can't take care of you." I went to my shift anyway. He gave in. "There's no arguing with you. You stubborn thing." But no job comes without swallowing something.

Next time a customer got to me. Nathaniel pulled me into his chest. "Don't be mad. From now on, whenever somebody makes you feel small, you come here.

And I'll buy you a little cake." Maybe the cake that day was too sweet. It gave me the idea we'd get old together.

I pictured the small pointless fights people have about dishes and laundry.

So I asked one question too many. "And what if you're the one who makes me feel small?" He made his face serious, pretending to be offended. "Why would I ever do that?" Maybe a promise only lasts as long as the few seconds it takes to mean it.

You're supposed to hear it and move on. I've learned. I let Celeste's line go by. And kept taking the order.

As for Nathaniel, at best he was a creditor who wasn't going to lift a hand. I stopped expecting anything. I listened to one name after another and rang it all up.

They ordered a lot. The total came to three hundred and some dollars. Celeste paid without blinking.

After they left, the girl on shift with me pressed a pack of tissues into my hand. "If you need to, go cry in the back room." I held the tissues and looked at the receipt on the counter.

Three hundred and some dollars. That's a month of food for me. The chime over the door had gone still a long time ago