“It was a disaster nobody could have predicted,” Clara remembers, her hands trembling slightly around her coffee cup. “A betrayal so complete, so humiliating, that I still wake up angry sometimes. And the worst part? It all came from HIS MOTHER’S mouth—not his.”
The dinner had started like a dream. Clara had been floating, practically glowing as they pulled into the driveway. Six months together.
Finally meeting his mom. This was IT—the moment that meant forever.
She’d worn her grandmother’s pearls. Baked homemade cookies. Rehearsed her greeting seventeen times.
Twenty minutes later, she would walk out of that house and never look back.
“I’ll need my own bathroom, of course. And storage for my craft supplies.”
Clara froze, her fork suspended in midair above the driest meatloaf she’d ever seen.
“I’m sorry, what?”
Jason’s mother smiled warmly, like she’d just offered to water plants, not demolish Clara’s entire relationship.
“The three-bedroom apartment downtown, dear. Jason said you got that big promotion—marketing director, right? Perfect timing! My lease is up in three weeks.”
The fork clattered against the plate.
Three weeks.
Three-bedroom apartment.
Her promotion.
“Jason,” Clara said slowly, her voice barely steady. “What is she talking about?”
His face had gone the color of spoiled milk. He wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“Oh, don’t worry!” his mother chirped, completely oblivious to the nuclear bomb she’d just detonated. “Jason and I discussed everything weeks ago. He promised he’d find a nice girl with a steady income who could help with the finances. And here you are!”
The words echoed like a death sentence.
A nice girl with a steady income.
“Wait—” Clara’s voice came out strangled. “You… you DISCUSSED this? Finding someone to… to FINANCE—”
“Well, of course!” His mother looked genuinely confused by Clara’s confusion. “After Tiffany didn’t work out—interior decorator, you know, no steady income—Jason knew he needed to be more strategic. Artists never work out financially.”
The room tilted sideways.
“Who the hell is Tiffany?”
Jason made a sound like a dying animal.
“Oh!” His mother’s eyes lit up with excitement. “Didn’t Jason tell you? Tiffany’s been setting up the loft for you two! She picked the most darling paint colors. Lavender, I believe. Very calming for a young couple.”
Lavender.
Clara was allergic to lavender.
Jason knew she was allergic to lavender.
“Let me get this straight,” Clara said, her voice shaking with rage she didn’t know she possessed. “There’s a woman named Tiffany—who you’re conveniently just NOW mentioning—who’s been decorating an apartment—that I knew nothing about—for US to live in—with YOUR MOTHER?”
“Clara, I can explain—” Jason started.
“Before Tiffany, there was Brittany,” his mother continued helpfully, cutting through her son’s desperate plea. “Yoga instructor. Lovely flexibility, terrible benefits. And before her, there was Sarah from that coffee shop—sweet girl, but minimum wage, you know. Jason, honey, you really need to screen these girls better before getting serious.”
Screen. These. Girls.
Like job applications.
Like auditions.
Like she was livestock at an auction.
“Oh my God,” Clara breathed, everything clicking into place with sickening clarity. “The business trips to Boston. The expensive throw pillows that magically appeared. The way you practically pushed me to negotiate for more money during my promotion interview…”
She looked at Jason, really looked at him, and saw a stranger.
“I’m not your girlfriend,” she whispered. “I’m your exit strategy.”
“That’s not—Clara, please—” Jason reached for her hand across the table.
She yanked it back like he’d tried to brand her.
“When?” Clara demanded. “When were you planning to tell me? After I signed the lease? After your mother moved in her crafts? After Tiffany finished decorating our FAKE LIFE?”
“It’s not fake! I love you—”
“YOU LOVE MY PAYCHECK!”
Her voice cracked like breaking glass. The room fell silent. Even his mother stopped chewing.
“That’s when I knew,” Clara remembers now, her voice quiet but fierce. “In that moment, I realized everything—every sweet word, every ‘I love you,’ every hand-hold during movies—it was all just… math. He was calculating. Not falling. And I’d been so stupidly, pathetically in love that I never saw it coming.”
Clara stood so violently her chair shrieked against the floor. Her grandmother’s pearls felt like a noose.
“How many?” she asked, her voice deadly calm.
“What?”
“HOW MANY GIRLS HAVE YOU DONE THIS TO?”
Jason’s silence was damning.
His mother, bless her oblivious soul, held up fingers. “Well, there was Sarah, then Brittany, then Tiffany, and now you—”
“I’m not ‘and now you,'” Clara grabbed her purse. “I’m DONE.”
“Clara, wait—” Jason stumbled after her, his voice breaking. “Let me explain—”
“Explain what?” She spun around, and something in her face made him step back. “That you’ve been running auditions for your wallet? That every conversation about our future was actually a business proposal? That while I was falling in love, you were just… budgeting me?”
“That’s not fair—”
“FAIR?” Clara laughed—a sharp, hysterical sound. “You want to talk about FAIR? I thought you loved me, Jason. I drove here tonight so happy I could barely breathe. I wore my dead grandmother’s pearls. I BAKED COOKIES.”
The cookies sat on the counter, perfect and untouched. She’d made them from scratch.
“I thought,” her voice dropped to a whisper, “I thought I’d finally found someone real.”
Jason’s face crumpled. “You did. Clara, you did—”
“No,” she cut him off. “I found a really good actor. And your mother just gave me the script.”
She turned to leave, then stopped at the door.
“By the way—Tiffany’s lavender paint? I’m allergic. I break out in hives. But I guess she didn’t mention that little detail when she was planning our imaginary life together.”
“Clara, please—”
“Tell your mom good luck with the apartment search,” Clara said, her hand on the doorknob. “Tell Tiffany she has terrible taste in men. And tell yourself—” her voice broke, “—that you had something real and you traded it for a three-bedroom with good storage.”
She walked out into the cold night air.
Behind her, muffled through the door: “Well, that didn’t go as planned. Do you still have that hedge fund girl’s number? Madison?”
Clara laughed then—a sound that scared a passing cat. But it felt like waking up from a nightmare.
“I blocked his number before I even got to my car,” Clara says, her eyes clear now. “He called forty-seven times that night. Forty-seven. Each one more desperate than the last. But you know what? I never answered. Not once.”
