How do I know this? Well, Aurora did something interesting. She messaged me on Instagram, but instead of the usual “we need to talk” drama, she sent screenshots. Lots of screenshots. Messages where James promised to buy her a car, with what money, dude, conversations about moving into a luxury apartment that he definitely can’t afford, even some choice comments about me that, well, let’s just say they’re going to be interesting additions to our divorce proceedings.
“I thought you should see who he really is,” she wrote. “I’m done being part of his lies.”
I didn’t respond. Just forwarded everything to my attorney. Professional revenge is so much better than drama.
The cherry on top? James’s mom called me yesterday. Turns out she’s been watching this whole thing unfold in our small town’s gossip circle. She apologized for enabling his behavior all these years and then dropped a bombshell. James got fired from his job. Not because of me. Apparently, he’d been inflating his expense reports for months. All those fancy dates with Aurora, he was charging them to his company card.
I’m not going to lie, part of me wanted to post all this on Facebook, share the screenshots, make him feel as humiliated as I did when he called me useless. But you know what? I didn’t have to. He’s doing a perfect job of destroying his own reputation all by himself.
Instead, I focused on making my new little studio apartment feel like home. I bought some plants from Home Depot. They’re still alive. I figured out how to mount a TV by myself, YouTube is amazing, and I even started learning to cook properly. Turns out I’m not actually hopeless in the kitchen like James always said.
The best revenge? When he created yet another new Instagram account to message me, I didn’t even feel angry. I just marked it as spam and went back to watching my YouTube cooking tutorial.
Third update.
Remember how I mentioned James got fired for expense report fraud? That was just the beginning.
It started last Tuesday when I was getting coffee at Starbucks before work. I overheard two people at the next table talking about someone who got caught charging personal expenses to company accounts. I didn’t think much of it until I heard James’s name.
Turns out he hadn’t just been charging those dates with Aurora to his company card. He’d been running the scheme at his last three jobs. How do I know? Because Aurora, of all people, started talking, and not just to me. To everyone.