Chapter 13 - Trevor Without My Money
Trevor's company collapsed six weeks later.
Not because I destroyed it.
Because I stopped subsidizing it.
There is a difference.
Payroll failed.
The luxury office lease ended.
The Range Rover disappeared after the lease guarantee was terminated according to contract.
The image Trevor had constructed evaporated astonishingly quickly.
He had spent years confusing expensive surroundings with personal achievement.
Without my money, reality arrived.
One afternoon, I saw him outside the courthouse.
No designer suit.
No driver.
No audience.
Just Trevor.
For a moment, I remembered the man I'd met six years earlier.
The funny one.
The ambitious one.
The man who brought tacos to my office at midnight when I worked late.
Maybe that man had existed.
Maybe this man had always been inside him too.
Both things could be true.
He saw me.
"Claire."
I stopped.
He approached slowly.
"I loved you."
I studied him.
"Maybe."
His eyes filled.
"That's all you have to say?"
"What would you prefer?"
"I don't know."
That might have been the most truthful thing Trevor had ever said.
He looked exhausted.
"I messed everything up."
"Yes."
"I thought you'd always be there."
"I was."
That sentence hurt him.
I saw it.
Good.
Not because I wanted revenge.
Because sometimes truth should hurt.
He looked toward the courthouse.
"What happens now?"
"That's not my decision."
For once, Trevor would face consequences nobody could purchase away for him.
May you like
I walked past him.
He didn't follow.
