“I need space,” she said. “Don’t reach out.” Three days later, she and her ex were sipping cocktails on a Caribbean beach—public for the world to see. I didn’t chase her. I changed the locks, cleared her things, and sold the car under my name. When she came back, she found an empty parking spot… and a life she was no longer part of.
It all started on a dreary Tuesday morning, the rare Southern California weather when ocean fog rolls in, obscuring the Hollywood Hills.
I was standing in the kitchen, making coffee. The smell of roasted Arabica beans filled the Malibu mansion I’d spent five years of my youth building. Jessica came down the stairs. She wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at her phone, her fingers hovering over the screen, the blue light reflecting off her lightly made-up but flawless face.
“David,” she said, her voice cold and emotionless. “I need to talk.”
I put down my coffee. “What’s wrong, Jess?”
“I feel suffocated,” she breathed, as if a thousand-pound weight had been lifted off her shoulders. “This relationship… it’s suffocating me. I need to find myself. I need… space.”
“Space?” I repeated, trying to process the information. We had just celebrated our third wedding anniversary last week. I had just given her the Cartier necklace. “You mean you want to go on a trip alone for a few days? Or do you want to go to your parents’ house?”
“No,” she interrupted, her eyes determined. “I need to separate. Don’t look for me. Don’t call. Give me time to think about whether we’re still compatible.”
Then she picked up the Louis Vuitton travel bag she’d been packing and headed out the door. “Where are you going?” I asked after her. “To a place you can’t find,” she replied, and got into the white Range Rover – the one I’d bought her for her birthday last year, but the papers were still in my name because of insurance.
I stood there, watching the car disappear behind the iron gate. I respected her. I didn’t run after her, didn’t beg her. I thought she was having a mid-life crisis, or the stress of her semi-professional Instagram modeling job.
I was wrong.
Three days passed in silence. I kept my promise. No texts. No calls. I went to work, came home, and stared into the empty space of my big house.
On the third evening, while I was scrolling through Instagram to kill time, a notification popped up from a mutual friend’s account. It was a tagged photo.
My heart stopped.
The photo was taken at Grace Bay Beach in Turks and Caicos. The water was emerald green, the sand was white. In the center of the photo was Jessica. She was wearing a tiny string bikini, holding a bright orange cocktail. And she wasn’t there alone, “finding herself.” Sitting next to her, her hand resting possessively on her thigh, was Tyler—her ex-boyfriend from college. The Tyler she once swore was “the biggest asshole in the world.”
They were smiling. The smiles of winners. The caption below the photo simply read: “Sometimes you have to get lost to find your true calling. #Soulmate #Freedom.”
I zoomed in. Jessica still had the Cartier bracelet I gave her on her wrist. My Range Rover was probably parked at LAX. And my credit card…
I checked my banking app. Notification: $5,000 transaction at The Ritz-Carlton, Turks & Caicos. Notification: $800 transaction at Coco Bistro.
She used her “personal space” to openly cheat on her ex, using my money, my car, and my trust. She thought I was the stupid husband who would sit home worrying, waiting for her to come home after she was done with her lover.
A strange calm spread through me. No explosive anger. No smashing of furniture. There was only the coldness of an iceberg.
I hung up. It was time to clean up.
The next morning, I didn’t go to work.
8:00 AM: I called a locksmith. “Replace everything,” I told the old man. “The front door, the front door, the garage door. I want the latest biometric locks. Only my fingerprints will open them.”
10:00 AM: I called a moving company. “I need to get rid of someone’s stuff. Pack everything. Clothes, shoes, cosmetics, pictures. Everything that belongs to her.”
I rented a self-storage unit in the worst suburb of Los Angeles, paid a month’s rent in advance. I mailed the keys to her mother.
12:00 PM: I drove my second car to the long-term parking lot at LAX. I found the white Range Rover. I had a spare key. I drove straight to the nearest CarMax dealership.
“You want to sell it?” the clerk asked, his eyes lighting up at the sight of the well-maintained late-model car. “Right away,” I replied. “I don’t care what it costs, as long as it’s quick. Cash or same-day transfer.”
The car was in my name. The transaction was done in 45 minutes. When I walked out of the dealership with a check for $85,000, I felt as relieved as if a malignant tumor had been removed.
2:00 PM: The final step. I called the bank. “I want to report a lost card. Block all additional credit cards in Jessica Vance’s name. Immediately.”
“Sir, there’s a $2,000 pending transaction in Turks and Caicos, would you like to…” “Decline it,” I interrupted. “And all
For all transactions from the last 3 days, please mark them as fraudulent. I didn’t do them.”
Done. I went home. The house was emptier now, without the strong smell of her perfume, without the high heels strewn about. It was quiet. A clean quiet.
Two days later. Just as I’d predicted. When the credit card was locked, the “true love” in the tropical paradise quickly fell apart. Tyler was a dashing but broke fitness trainer. He hooked up with Jessica because he thought she was a gold mine (from me). When the gold mine closed, he probably dumped her right there in the hotel lobby.
At 5 p.m., an Uber pulled up in front of the villa. Jessica got out. She was no longer as glamorous as she had been in the photo. Her makeup was smudged, her hair was messy, her skin was sunburned. She dragged her heavy Louis Vuitton suitcase, limping because one of her heels was broken.
She walked to the electronic gate control panel. She punched in the familiar code belong. Beep. Beep. Beep. Error.
She frowned, pressed it again. Beep. Beep. Beep. Error.
She started to panic. She rummaged in her bag for the mechanical gate key. She inserted it into the lock. It didn’t fit.
I stood on the second-floor balcony, holding a glass of red wine, looking down. She looked up, saw me. Her eyes lit up with hope, then quickly turned to anger.
“David!” she yelled. “What the hell? Open the gate! The code is broken!”
I took a sip of wine, didn’t answer.
“David! Can you hear me? I’m home! I’ve thought about it, I realize I was wrong, I miss you!” She started to perform the apology song I had predicted word for word. “Tyler was just a weakling… I was tricked… Open the gate and we’ll talk!”
I took out my phone and pressed the speakerphone button so she could hear me through the intercom at the gate.
“Jessica,” I said, my voice calm. “I don’t live here anymore.”
“What did you say?” she screamed. “This is my house! My stuff is in there! Where’s my car? Why is the parking lot empty?”
“The car was sold,” I said. “My stuff was moved to a storage facility in East LA. My mom has the keys. I have 28 days to get it before they liquidate it.”
“You… you sold my car?” She was stunned, her face drained of color. “You have no right! You’re an asshole!”
“The car’s in my name, Jessica. And so is this house. According to the prenuptial agreement you signed—which you never bothered to read because you were so caught up in spending money—infidelity is a clause that immediately forfeits all financial rights.”
“But… but I need to get in! I have nowhere else to go! Tyler left me at the airport… I have no money…” She started crying, falling to her knees in front of the cold iron gate.
That’s when I delivered the final blow.
“Jessica,” I said. “Do you remember why you said you needed space?”
She looked up, tears welling up in her eyes. “Because… because you felt suffocated?”
“No,” I shook my head. “I needed space because Tyler said he had a big investment opportunity in the Caribbean and needed the capital. I was going to use my card to withdraw cash for him, then run away with him. I thought if I said ‘I need space,’ I wouldn’t check my account for a few days, enough time for you to dispose of the assets.”
Jessica’s eyes widened in horror. “How… how did you know?”
“Because Tyler isn’t an ex I met by chance,” I smiled coldly. “Tyler is my employee.”
Jessica was stunned. Her whole world seemed to collapse around her.
“I hired a private investigator to follow you three months ago, when you started acting strange,” I continued. “I knew you were contacting him again. I knew you were complaining about me. So I paid Tyler. A good amount. His job was to seduce you, take you far away, and most importantly: Post that photo to Public.”
“You…” Jessica stammered, unable to form a sentence. “You set me up?”
“I didn’t set you up to cheat, Jessica. You’ve wanted to cheat for a long time. I just… made it easier for you to show your true colors sooner. I needed irrefutable evidence so the divorce could go through quickly and I wouldn’t have to pay you a dime.”
I looked at the girl trembling under the gate. “Tyler sent me the whole recording of you badmouthing me, the plan to take your money. He’s a bad guy, but he’s a bad guy who likes money more than he likes you. When I blocked your card, that was his signal to finish the deal and dump you.”
“David… please…” She begged, her voice weak. “I’m sorry… I’ll do anything…”
“You got what you wanted, Jessica,” I said, setting my glass down on the railing. “You wanted space? You have the whole world out there now. This gate will never open for you again.”
I turned off the intercom. I turned back into the house, pulling the curtains back.
Outside, dusk was falling. I could hear Jessica crying, pounding on the lifeless iron gate. But the sound was distant and small, like the sound of ocean waves crashing on the sand somewhere far away.
far away.
I went into my office, where there was a bottle of fine whiskey I had been saving for a special occasion. I poured a glass. My phone rang. A text from Tyler: “Transaction complete. Thanks boss.” I transferred the rest of the money to him and blocked the number.
I sat down in my chair, looking around the quiet room. No more lies. No more exploitation. I had lost a car, lost a “actress” fee, but I had bought back the most precious thing: my freedom and self-respect.
She wanted a parking spot in my life? Sorry, the parking lot was closed forever.
