At ten thirty-four, Lucas sent another message.
Open Alipay again.
Then:
I’ll pay you back tomorrow.
Then:
Stop being childish.
I stared at the screen for a few seconds.
Childish.
Three years of paying his bills.
Two years of covering the car.
Twenty-four subscriptions.
And the first night I stopped financing him, I had suddenly become childish.
I turned the phone facedown.
Ten minutes later, someone knocked on the door.
Lucas.
Of course.
I opened it but did not move aside.
He was still wearing the same jacket.
His expression was irritated rather than sad.
“Why did you block everything?”
“Because we broke up.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to cut everything off immediately.”
I almost laughed.
“When would be appropriate?”
He rubbed his forehead.
“I’m staying at a hotel tonight.”
“Yes.”
“My card limit is temporarily frozen.”
“That sounds like something you should solve with your bank.”
His face tightened.
“You know I haven’t received this month’s bonus.”
“I know.”
“So turn Alipay back on for one night.”
“No.”
That one word seemed to confuse him.
Lucas had heard me say many things over three years.
Of course.
I’ll handle it.
Don’t worry.
I already paid.
He had apparently never prepared for no.
He stared at me.
“Are you seriously going to treat me like a stranger after everything we’ve been through?”
“You ended the relationship.”
“I said we weren’t compatible.”
“Yes.”
“And incompatible people generally don’t share bank cards.”
Silence.
Then his voice became colder.
“So this is revenge.”
“No.”
I looked at him.
“It’s accounting.”
He tried to enter.
I blocked the doorway.
“My things are still inside.”
“I packed them.”
I handed him the large cloth bag.
He looked at it as though I had insulted him.
“That’s it?”
“There’s another box with your shoes.”
“What about the monitor?”
“You bought it using my Alipay family account.”
His mouth closed.
“The game console?”
“Same.”
“The coffee machine?”
“Mine.”
He stared at me.
For the first time, Lucas seemed to understand that the apartment was not simply a place where things appeared.
Someone had purchased them.
Usually me.
He took the bag.
Before leaving, he said:
“You’ll regret being this cold.”
I nodded.
“Maybe.”
Then I closed the door.
The next morning, I checked the hotel charge again.
The hotel belonged to a boutique chain.
And the woman Lucas had been appearing beside in photographs was named Sophie Lin.
Twenty-six.
Event coordinator.
She worked there.
I did not contact her.
I did not need to.
But two days later, she contacted me.
Are you Lucas’s ex-girlfriend?
I hesitated.
Then replied:
Yes.
Her next message surprised me.
He said you had already broken up months ago.
I sat very still.
There it was.
The part I had expected.
Lucas had not left me because his feelings disappeared Friday night.
He had simply decided Friday was the best time to announce something he had already been living privately.
Sophie continued:
He told me the apartment was his.
Another message:
He said the car was fully paid.
I almost admired the consistency.
He had built an entire identity from things I financed.
I replied only:
The car is in his name. The loan is not finished. The apartment is mine.
Sophie did not answer for twenty minutes.
Then:
Understood.
That was the end of our conversation.
The car became the next problem.
I had paid the down payment.
I had also made most monthly payments.
But legally, it was registered to Lucas.
So I did not try to take it.
I simply removed my card from the loan account.
The following payment failed.
Lucas called from another number.
“You canceled the car payment too?”
“Yes.”
“You know I need the car for work.”
“Then pay for it.”
His voice rose.
“You paid it for two years!”
“And now I don’t.”
“You can’t suddenly change everything.”
I leaned back in my chair.
“Lucas, you changed the relationship.”
“The payments belonged to the relationship.”
He went silent.
Then:
“So everything you did for me had conditions?”
“No.”
I answered calmly.
“I gave freely while we were together.”
“But generosity is not a lifelong contract.”
That time, he hung up first.
Within a month, Lucas sold the car.
He could not comfortably manage the payment plus insurance, parking and fuel.
The gym membership disappeared.
The whiskey club disappeared.
The office parking space disappeared.
So did the premium travel service.
Apparently compatibility had been expensive.
I did not celebrate.
I simply discovered how much money remained in my account when I stopped funding another adult.
The first month:
Almost nine thousand yuan.
The second:
Over eleven thousand.
By the third month, I had rebuilt the savings account that had somehow remained nearly empty despite years of full-time work.
I bought myself something extravagant.
Not jewelry.
Not a bag.
A new mattress.
For years, Lucas had complained that the firmer mattress I preferred hurt his back.
So we slept on the one he wanted.
That first night on the new mattress, I slept nine hours.
I woke up laughing.
Sophie contacted me again two months later.
Only once.
We’re no longer seeing each other.
I stared at the message.
Then she added:
I thought you should know he blamed you for everything.
I replied:
You don’t need to explain anything to me.
She sent one final message.
I think I understand now why you left so calmly.
I didn’t correct her.
Lucas had left me.
But calmness had been my decision.
Four months after the breakup, Lucas appeared outside my office.
He looked thinner.
He wore an old jacket I had not seen in years.
“Can we talk?”
I agreed to coffee downstairs.
He sat across from me without ordering anything.
After a long silence, he asked:
“Were you unhappy the whole time?”
“No.”
That surprised him.
“I was happy for a long time.”
“Then why did you cut me off so easily?”
I looked at him.
“I didn’t.”
His brows tightened.
“I spent years slowly cutting pieces off myself.”
“My weekends.”
“My money.”
“My preferences.”
“My apartment.”
“My schedule.”
I stirred my coffee.
“By the night you broke up with me, there wasn’t much left to negotiate.”
Lucas looked down.
Then he asked:
“Did you know about Sophie?”
“Not for certain.”
His face changed.
“I never cheated physically before we broke up.”
I didn’t ask for details.
It no longer mattered.
“You told her we had already ended.”
Silence.
“So emotionally, you had already created a new version of your life.”
He could not deny it.
Then came the sentence I had almost expected.
“Can we start again?”
I looked at him.
He continued quickly:
“I made a mistake.”
“I thought I wanted someone more outgoing.”
“Someone more exciting.”
“But Sophie and I fought constantly.”
“She said I expected too much.”
I almost smiled.
“Did she?”
He looked embarrassed.
Then:
“I realize now how much you did.”
There it was.
Not:
I realize who you are.
But:
I realize what you did for me.
I shook my head.
“Lucas, you miss the convenience.”
“No.”
“You miss the version of yourself that existed when someone else paid the boring parts of your life.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Maybe.”
I stood.
“But it’s still over.”
A year later, I moved apartments.
The monstera came with me.
It had grown enormous.
The yellow edges were gone.
One afternoon, while repotting it, I found myself thinking about that first night.
Twenty-four payments.
Twenty-four cancellations.
At the time, I thought I was only shutting off subscriptions.
I wasn’t.
I was learning where my money ended and another person’s entitlement began.
Lucas had believed love meant permanent access.
To my wallet.
My labor.
My patience.
My home.
He thought breaking up meant he could keep the benefits while replacing the relationship.
That was his real miscalculation.
Because the night he said we were no longer compatible, I finally agreed with him.
Not because I disliked camping.
Not because I preferred quiet weekends.
Not because I didn’t wear enough makeup.
We were incompatible because he believed love was something another person should continuously fund for him.
And I had finally learned that affection without boundaries eventually becomes maintenance.
Lucas ended our relationship with one sentence.
I ended the system supporting it with twenty-four clicks.
And of everything I canceled that night—
the most important was the habit of paying to be loved.
