Chapter 1
On our seventh anniversary, I was running a fever of 102 degrees. I told Grant Mercer.
He checked my temperature, then opened the relationship-scoring app on his phone and added one point. "Proactively reported a physical anomaly. One point added."
Then he took a step back, put on a mask, and kept his distance from me. "The product demo starts at nine. Can you still make it? I need you to take the meeting minutes."
Seven years together. And on our anniversary, all I got was a sterile alert about extra credit. No gifts. No warmth. Nothing.
I did not cry. I did not make a scene. I only braced a hand against the table and forced myself to stand. "I can."
From 18 to 25, I had learned to live with every part of Grant.
He had turned our life into a shared spreadsheet. Even our relationship had to be measured through the scoring app he had built himself.
Every time we argued, Grant would pull up the comparison chart.
"Evelyn, your total score is lower than mine. That means you have more problems in this relationship than I do."
But last night, Grant had fallen asleep. I got up for a glass of water and saw his laptop screen still glowing.
On the screen was a wish board he had built for one person. At the very top, it read, "Everything I want to do with Clara is worth 100 points."
So his tenderness and patience had never been limited by data after all. He knew how to care about things that could not be measured. He just never cared about me that way.
In that case, I was done working for free in his life.
Grant Mercer got the answer he wanted and nodded in satisfaction. Then he turned toward the study to prepare his presentation materials.
As he passed me, he handed me two fever-reducing pills and a glass of water.
"Take these. Your temperature should come down in half an hour. That should be enough to get you through the meeting."
I looked at the two white pills as my fingers slowly curled against my palm. Even his concern came with a precisely calculated window of effectiveness.
I swallowed the pills without saying a word.
The meeting was held online. Grant was the presenter. His logic was sharp, his tone was calm, and every data point flowed from him with effortless precision. The executives on the client side nodded along as they listened.
I sat in the corner with a mask on, my fingers resting on the keyboard. The fever had drained all the strength from my body. My hands felt heavy, and the edges of my vision kept blurring.
Grant was sharing a model on screen when an itch suddenly rose in my throat at the worst possible moment.
I tried to hold it back, but I could not. I coughed three times, keeping the sound as low as I could.
Grant paused for a single second, but that was all. He did not even glance at me before continuing as if nothing had happened, his tone as steady as ever.
The meeting ended, and the client logged off, clearly satisfied.
Grant closed his laptop and turned to me. Then he opened the relationship scoring app. Under the Negative Behavior column, he began checking off items one by one.
"Produced nonessential noise during a meeting. Five points deducted. Disrupted a core workflow at a critical moment. Three points deducted. With these deductions, your monthly partner contribution score has fallen below the warning threshold. Penalty system activated."
Grant looked up at me. His voice carried no emotion at all. "Evelyn, your leisure time next month is revoked. That includes your reservation for the art exhibition."
I lowered my head and looked at my hands.
That exhibition was the farewell show of Blue Isle, my favorite illustrator. I had waited an entire year for it. Two months ago, I had set an alarm just to secure a ticket the second reservations opened.
I had mentioned it to Grant so many times, hoping he would go with me.
Every time, he gave me the same answer. "Round-trip travel time plus the exhibition itself would take six hours. The input-to-output ratio is far too low."
This time, I said nothing. I was too tired to argue, too tired even to defend the one sentence I still wanted to say: "I waited a whole year for that exhibition."
