"I know."
"Do you?"
I looked at her.
"You seem eager to find the equation where both sides are equally responsible. Sometimes they aren't. You can have contributed to an unhealthy dynamic without earning cruelty."
That was harder for me to accept than I expected. At work, responsibility was comforting because it created a lever. If I caused part of a problem, I could change part of the outcome. The idea that I could behave imperfectly and still be wronged by someone else felt less controllable. Over the next month, I stayed at the hotel for eleven days, then moved into a furnished short-term apartment.
I resisted buying a condo immediately because Dr. Levin pointed out that I had a habit of making permanent financial decisions whenever emotional uncertainty made me uncomfortable. That irritated me enough to prove she had a point. I returned to routine. Work.
Gym. Dinner with friends. Sunday calls with my mother. No checking Sarah's social accounts. No asking mutual friends for reports.
That last rule lasted nine days. Dave broke it without being asked. We were eating lunch when he said, "You know she got a job, right?" I looked up.
"Sarah?"
"Part-time. Event staffing and some freelance marketing. Jessica told my wife."
Something loosened in my chest.
"Good."
Dave studied me.
"That's it?"
"What do you want me to say?"
"I don't know. I expected at least a small villain laugh."
"Why?"
"Because three weeks ago you compared ending a relationship to divesting a bad asset."
I winced.
"I was angry."
"You were also unbearable."
"Thank you."
He grinned.
"For what it's worth, I'm glad she's working."
"So am I."
And I was. The cleaner the separation became, the less I wanted Sarah ruined. I wanted her independent. Not because I wanted to prove she could survive without me, but because some part of the bitterness came from realizing she had trained herself to believe she could not. Sarah's parents eventually took her in for six weeks under the conditions she had described as humiliating.
Her father reviewed her debts. Her mother required her to contribute to groceries once she started earning again. They did not allow filming in the house without permission. I heard later that Sarah fought them for the first week. Then she stopped.
Her creator account went quiet except for occasional sponsored posts she had already contracted. Several companies ended partnerships because her engagement dropped when she stopped performing constant luxury. Others stayed. That was another lesson I had not expected. The internet did not punish Sarah with cinematic finality.
It simply moved on. The audience that seemed like a permanent institution found new people to watch. Her follower count remained substantial, but the attention became less valuable when she could no longer spend enough to keep producing the life that had attracted it. Jared disappeared from her content completely. He did not disappear from mine because my mind kept replaying him.
Not as a romantic rival. As a symbol. For weeks, I imagined that if Jared had truly been wealthy, truly had the penthouse, truly had enough income to support Sarah, maybe she would have stayed with him and never looked back. That thought wounded my ego in ways I did not want to admit. During therapy, I finally said it aloud.