For months I paid for dinners, gifts, and even his emergencies, until I accidentally overheard the cruelest taunt: “You’re just free food”; the worst part wasn’t the humiliation, but discovering that all his gestures had been an act.

The sounds of laughter continued to drift from the bedroom as he remained completely unaware that his fancy birthday plans had just vanished. I did not answer any of his messages that night or throughout the following Friday when he asked what my text meant.

He called me twice and asked if I was okay but I let him sit in his uncertainty because I was finished doing the emotional labor for him. On Saturday, I invited my friend Ginny, who is a pediatric nurse, to come over and help me deal with the situation.

Ginny arrived with a bottle of wine and the perfect sense of humor that I needed to get through the evening. We opened the cake together and found that it was spectacular, bitter, and perfect in every possible way.

At eight o’clock my phone began to vibrate with a message from Mitch asking where I was. Ginny raised an eyebrow while I looked at the screen and smiled because I knew exactly what was happening at that moment.

“They are telling me here that there are no reservations under my name,” he texted two minutes later. He followed that up by asking if I had cancelled the plans and demanding that I answer him immediately.