My Ex Tortured Me Over His Mother’s Death

I saw the screenshots before I heard the laughter.

Someone had taped them to my locker—printed in color, high resolution, arranged in a neat grid like evidence at a crime scene. My face. My body. A speech bubble in pink Comic Sans: "Hey baby, I missed you last night."

My stomach turned over.

I ripped them down fast, crumpling the pages in my fist. The hallway was already filling up with morning traffic. A group of sophomore boys walked past, phones out, elbowing each other. One of them glanced up at me and grinned.

"Yo, Kara! You should charge more. Five bucks is a steal."

His friends exploded into laughter.

I kept my face blank. Didn't look at them. Didn't respond. I shoved the crumpled printouts into my bag and walked toward the east wing classrooms, heels clicking too loud on the tile.

Behind me, someone whispered, "Ice queen's finally melting."

I found an empty classroom on the third floor—one of those forgotten seminar rooms that only gets used during finals week. I locked the door, pulled out my laptop, and opened the campus network.

The app was everywhere.

Group chats. Reddit threads. A Discord server with over two thousand members. Someone had even made a review video on YouTube: "Top 5 AI Girlfriends You Can Actually Afford." I was number three.

The developer metadata was sloppy. Whoever built this wanted it to spread fast, not stay hidden. I traced the hosting server, pulled the registration records, cross-referenced the payment processor.

Twenty minutes later, I had a name.

Not Asa's. But close enough. A shell company registered under one of his family's subsidiaries. The kind of thing you only find if you know where to look.

My hands were shaking.

I closed the laptop. Stared at the blank whiteboard on the wall. Tried to breathe.

Four years. Four years of late-night conversations and shared coffee and his hand on the small of my back at faculty mixers. Four years of believing I knew him.

I had saved his life once. Dove into a frozen lake when we were kids and pulled him out, my lungs burning, my fingers going numb. I never told him. Never asked for anything.

And he had turned me into this.

I left the classroom and walked toward the faculty lounge. I wasn't sure what I was looking for—confirmation, maybe. Some kind of explanation that would make this make sense.

I heard his voice before I saw him.

The corridor near the lounge had terrible acoustics. Sound carried. I stopped outside a half-open door, and Asa's voice drifted out, low and controlled.

"She actually believed it, Owen. Four years. Every word."

Owen Cartwright's voice, quieter: "Jesus, man. That's—"

"Justice," Asa cut him off. "Her mother destroyed mine. Drove her to suicide. You think I was going to let that go unanswered?"

"But Kara didn't—"

"She's a Simmons. That's enough."

Silence.

Then Owen, uncomfortable: "So what now? You just... end it?"

"It's already over. She served her purpose."

I stood there. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. Someone's phone buzzed in a nearby classroom. The world kept moving, indifferent.

I turned and walked away.

---

I went to his apartment that night.

I still had the key. He'd given it to me six months ago, smiling, saying, "Use it whenever you want to surprise me."

I let myself in. The lights were on. He was sitting on the couch with a glass of whiskey, like he'd been expecting me.

"Kara."

I stood in the doorway. "Is it true?"

He looked at me for a long moment. Then he smiled—not the warm smile I'd fallen in love with, but something colder, sharper.

"You're smarter than I thought. I was wondering how long it would take."

"Four years," I said quietly. "Four years, Asa. Was any of it real?"

"No."

The word landed like a slap.

I waited for him to take it back. To laugh. To tell me this was some kind of sick joke.

He didn't.

"Your mother killed mine," he said, voice flat. "She drove her to jump off our roof. You think I was going to let that slide? You think I was going to let a Simmons walk around this campus like nothing happened?"

"My mother didn't—"

"Don't." He stood up, setting the glass down with a sharp clink. "Don't insult me by lying. I know what she did."

I stared at him. This man I'd loved. This stranger.

"We're done," he said. "You served your purpose. Now get out."

I turned and left.

I held myself together all the way to Juliana's apartment. Knocked on her door. Waited.

She opened it, took one look at my face, and pulled me inside.

"What happened?"

I told her everything. The app. The conversation. The confrontation. My voice stayed steady until the end, and then it cracked, and I couldn't stop it.

Juliana's face went white, then red.

"We're going to the dean. The police. I don't care who his family is—"

"No." I grabbed her wrist. "Not yet."

"Kara—"

"I still have my thesis. I still have my degree. If I go to war with him now, I lose everything." I took a shaky breath. "I need to finish. I need to survive this first."

Juliana looked at me for a long time. Then she nodded.

But something had changed in her eyes.

Something hard and final.

I didn't notice it then.