“I worked unpaid overtime for six months to secure a massive corporate deal, desperately needing the bonus to pay for my grandmother's heart medication. But the new lead director turned out to be my ex-boyfriend, Julian. The first thing he did was strip me of my title and give my position to his new intern girlfriend, Poppy. He publicly humiliated me, stranded me on a deserted highway, and ultimately got me fired. Meanwhile, my gambling father brought violent loan sharks to my frail grandmother's apartment. They kicked the coffee table and grabbed my father by the collar. "If we don't get two hundred thousand dollars by Friday, we'll take the deed and throw this old lady out onto the freezing street." But the most crushing blow wasn't the massive debt or losing my livelihood. It was Poppy slipping up in the office lobby, bragging that she and Julian had been dating for four years. Julian and I broke up exactly three years ago. He had been sleeping with her in our bed for a full year while we were still together, yet he was the one treating me like absolute garbage. Looking at my crying grandmother, my grief burned away, leaving only cold, hard fury. I pulled out my cracked phone and called a high-end real estate agent. It was time to sell the luxury Upper East Side condo Julian had gifted me, pay off the debt, and erase him from my life forever.”