He Kept a Scorecard for Our Love, So I Left Him at ZeroChapter 2

The apartment was silent when I opened the door.

Sunny, our golden retriever, came racing toward me, tail wagging. He pressed his furry head against my calf and whined.

I crouched and wrapped both arms around him.

I had found Sunny as a stray in a thunderstorm three years earlier.

Ethan was obsessed with cleanliness and had fought me on adopting a dog. To keep Sunny, I had been forced to sign a set of one-sided terms on the scorecard.

I had to clean the apartment three times a day. Every loose dog hair cost me one point.

For three years, I had crawled over the floors like a maid, wiping up every strand before Ethan could see it.

Whenever he was in a bad mood, though, he claimed the apartment smelled like dog and docked me fifty points on the spot.

As I stroked Sunny's head, the tears finally came.

"Come on, buddy. We're leaving."

I stood, retrieved the large pet carrier gathering dust in the storage closet, then went to the bedroom and opened the wardrobe.

More than half of it was filled with Ethan's custom suits.

My clothes had been squeezed into a sliver of space at the far end.

I took out my suitcase and packed only the casual clothes I had bought with my own money.

I left every designer bag and dress Ethan had awarded me for earning points.

They had never truly been mine. They were trophies from his scoring game.

I zipped the suitcase shut with both hands.

My phone buzzed.

Chloe had posted a new story.

In the photo, she sat in the theater's private VIP lounge holding an iced brown-sugar boba. A diamond necklace glittered at her throat.

Her caption read: "Nothing beats IMAX. Thank you to the best boss for spoiling me and surprising me with this gorgeous gift."

I recognized the necklace.

Ethan had ordered it from the designer's website a month ago.

At the time, he had shown me the picture and said it would be my gift if I reached one hundred points before our anniversary.

I had spent a month getting up early to prepare his high-protein, low-carb meals, all for those last ten points.

When his ulcer flared, I had even crossed the city in a downpour to pick up chicken soup from the one deli he insisted on.

But because I left the house ten minutes late that morning, all ten points had vanished.

And the necklace had naturally ended up around Chloe's neck.

I stared at the blinding sparkle on my screen. The last shred of hope inside me finally broke.

I did not confront Ethan.

I calmly tapped the heart icon, then closed the app and opened a local errand service.

I sent the concierge service our anniversary reservation details with a note: "Please cancel the private dining room at Skyline for eight tonight and have the deposit refunded to the original card."

Once that was done, I clipped on Sunny's leash and secured him in his carrier.

With the carrier in one hand and my suitcase rolling behind me, I headed for the door.

We had split the down payment on the apartment. But because my credit history was too new when we bought it, only Ethan's name appeared on the deed.

I once believed paperwork did not matter as long as we loved each other.

Now I understood that when your name was nowhere on the title, you could be thrown out at any time.

I set my spare key and building fob on the shoe cabinet and looked around the home I had spent five years creating.

The cool-toned furniture I had chosen to suit Ethan's minimalist taste suddenly looked foreign.

I opened the door and walked out without looking back.